I live in an area with unusable ATT coverage, and I need to remain with a GSM carrier for reasons of European travel. This means TMobile
I'd like to buy a new iPhone 4s, but do not know if it will work on the TMobile network. I don't mind loosing FaceTime and possible other features, but it does have to work on the high bandwidth frequencies and protocols.
So if I were to buy a new iPhone 4s unlocked from Apple, would it work on TMobile?
It will work for phone calls, but will be crippled for everything else: data will be painfully slow, with only EDGE speeds. There is no visual voicemail. There is no SMS texting. There is no FaceTime. A smart phone dumbed down.
"d I need to remain with a GSM carrier for reasons of European travel."
The iphone 4s can do both GSM and CDMA.
roaminggnome wrote:
"d I need to remain with a GSM carrier for reasons of European travel."
The iphone 4s can do both GSM and CDMA.
But an unlocked iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA carriers. Not that this is relevant to this discussion, but I wanted to point it out, because I don't understand why not since it has both chips...
Perhaps what is more relevant, is whether you could purchase an iPhone 4S with Verizon or Sprint and use it with a European carrier at THEIR rates, not roaming rates? This isn't clear to me.
anthrovisual wrote:
But an unlocked iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA carriers
Why would you say this? I haven't seen anything that would indicate this is true.
roaminggnome wrote:
"d I need to remain with a GSM carrier for reasons of European travel."
The iphone 4s can do both GSM and CDMA.
As I understand it, GSM differs between carriers and countries, mainly in their use of broadband frequencies and protocols.
So I believe the iPhone 4s is incompatibile with TMobile, for example. It is possible a GSM phone bought in Europe will work on TMo but not ATT here in the US.
It's under the About the Unlocked iPhone page, currently reachable through the iPhone 4 store section.
Personally, I don't understand why it wouldn't work with CDMA unless it's because those networks are super controlling about activating phones.
OK. Thanks. That's somewhat surprising. I'm guessing you're right in that the issue is more because of the carriers than it is anything else.
gdgmacguy wrote:
It will work for phone calls, but will be crippled for everything else: data will be painfully slow, with only EDGE speeds. There is no visual voicemail. There is no SMS texting. There is no FaceTime. A smart phone dumbed down.
Looking for more detail on the incompatibilities between TMo & ATT I found this post:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2550236?answerId=12126873022#12126873022
.. which sez:
T-Mobile decided to use AWS for their 3G network instead of following the global standard used by other GSM carriers who went from EDGE > EDGE+ > HSPA > HSPA+. Since T-Mobile is a GSM carrier you can use their EDGE data network which is slower and doesn't allow voice and data at the same time.
Wow! I thought the entire point about GSM was that it is absolutely a world-wide standard. Apparently TMo decided to "think different"?!
GSM and CDMA are completely different technologies. From what I've seen it appears that ther will be only two versions of the iPhone 4S. A carrier locked phone with both GSM and CDMA transmitters and an unlocked phone with only GSM.
This makes sense actually, since CMDA is only in use in North America. So for sprint to offer an iPhone 4S they would have to have it made for them by Apple.
There are carrier unlocks for certain combination of hardware and baseband, but these require a jailbroken phone often running an older basband under a newer iOS. As Apple opposes this kind of modifcation I won't go any further.
But how do the carrier locked iPhones work abroad? If the phone is locked to Verizon, for instance, can I use it abroad with any GSM SIM, as in the GSM side being unlocked?, or do I "roam" on other networks and pay Verizon extra for doing so?
I believe in most cases, the GSM side of CDMA "World phones" is NOT unlocked. You have to get a SIM from your CDMA carrier that will allow you to roam internationally and pay international roaming rates to your carrier. I suspect the iPhone 4S will be the same.
Will Unlocked iPhone 4s work with T-Mobile?
