Text Message From ATT after moving SIM Card from 5S

Friday October 5, 2014, I received my no-contract T-Mobile iPhone 6 from Apple. I have AT&T prepaid service. I put my AT&T SIM card from my iPhone 5 into the no-contract T-Mobile iPhone 6 then powered it on. It came up with AT&T network, my phone number and I am able to make and receive calls.

I discovered that my cellular data was not working. The suggestions here solved my problem. Basically, AT&T has to adjust your internet settings on their end.

My iPhone 6 is working fine.

I am confirming that buying a no-contract T-Mobile iPhone 6 from Apple is running my AT&T service. However, when I run a check to see if it is unlocked, the status is unknown. It may be that I have to wait 45 days then ask T-Mobile to unlock it (they tell you this but they do not tell you that you can use another carrier SIM up to and beyond that time); however you can immediately use the phone with any GSM carrier. I will be in Jamaica in a week and I'll let you know how the phone worked (in accepting their carriers' SIM).

I've also gone through the process of buying a contract free, T-Mobile phone from Apple and can confirm that the phone is unlocked but you will experience various problems getting it working on AT&T.

Here's the summary of problems I had and their resolutions:

• After swapping my AT&T SIM into the phone, voice and texts worked but no data - this was fixed by taking to AT&T store and getting the SIM swapped out but I actually think the SIM they gave me was identical, the key thing is that they register your new IMEI number with your account as part of that process
• I then found that LTE was not working - this was eventually fixed by going to the AT&T store again and them spoofing my account with a serial number for a phone registered with AT&T (the guy at the store used his own phone's serial number!)

The second point works around an issue with AT&T's system which is that for whatever reason, the serial number is linked with T-Mobile despite the phone being unlocked and this was preventing it getting LTE for one reason or another. Be careful because both Apple and AT&T support initially believed that the issue was with the phone with it being "locked" to T-Mobile which it evidently was not. Apple actually recommended I take the phone back for a refund!

When I bought my iphone 6 three weeks ago, I was adamant about not changing my plan. This was not an upgrade; I paid full freight so as to keep my low monthly ATT mobile share plan. The Apple Genius took my iphone 5 nano sim and put it into the iphone 6. Everything has worked normally since then. Today I updated to ios 8.1, and immediately after this was completed, I received the same texts from ATT about needing to update my SIM card. This has come to me three times in first three hours since updating. Meanwhile, I stopped at Walgreens on the way home to test the Apple Pay and it worked like a charm on the can of Pringles I purchased! So I suppose the SIM has to be changed when Voice over LTE comes to the DC area. I can live with that.

If they are setting up VoLTE at AT&T, does that mean that they will be charging you for data while you're connected via VoLTE? That would be another way for them to make more money off of everyone since the minutes would not go to your monthly Voice minutes.

I Know that all of you are on att but I am on verizon (unlimited) so I have to buy all my phones full price, like all of you I just took my sim from my 5s and set it up from there and I have noticed that my signal isn't as good as was on the 5s just a bar or 2 less. Could this be due to the new sim not being used? Verizon isn't doing volte yet but everything seems to be working good other than less bars on signal.

I got the same text message after setting up my no-contract iPhone 6. I backed up my out-of-contract ATT iPhone 5 to iTunes, shut it down. Put the SIM in my new no-contract iPhone 6, setup the phone from the backups in iTunes. After the restore and reboot, I got a congratulations message on the iPhone, announcing that it was unlocked. Soon, I got a text message: "ATT Free Msg: Your new deice requires a new SIM card to give you access to all services. Please visit your local ATT store to get a new SIM. Thanks." Interesting that this message doesn't show up in Messages on my Mac; it's only on my phone. All of my other text messages show in both places.

The phone seems to work fine. No problems noticed yet. I've been using it for a couple of days.

I went to the local ATT store an asked about the message, and the person in the store had never heard of the issue and had no clue why I got it. She looked at the SIM and said it looks fine. She said if the phone seems to be working, there should be no need for a different SIM.

I realize this is an old thread, but I'd like to comment for future posterity about the situation as I understand it. The Sim card included with the unlocked contract free version of the iPhone6 (T mobile) is in fact a secure SIM. AT&T and Verizon similarly also provide a secure Sim card with the iPhone 6. The Sim cards differ slightly from regular (or older) nano Sim cards (such as from an iPhone 5/5s) in that one of the contact pads is implemented to a secure hardware within the Sim card, which allows apps to make secure connections to the network. if you plan to use your unlocked, contract free iPhone 6 with an MVNO you will have great difficulty finding a secure SIM at this point in time, or even a sales associate that knows what you're talking about.

The secure SIM is necessary for apps like softcard to make purchases through the NFC transaction protocol. Other apps can also take advantage of the secure connection through NFC to make transactions and process payments. If you plan to use apps that make NFC payments, such as Google wallet, or soft card, you will need a secure SIM to make transactions possible. However, if you only plan on to use Apple pay, you will not need a secure SIM, as the hardware encryption is built into the iPhone 6 and does not rely on the secure SIM. The text message you received from AT&T or whoever your provider is when you replace the Sim card in the contract free iPhone 6 is meant to notify you that not ALL services will be supportEd without a new, secure SIM. Specifically, one such service is NFC secure transaction payments. I have read mention that one other such service is voice over LTE (VoLTE). My research so far does not show whether this is or is not true, since voice over LTE has not been rolled out in many markets, so I have not been able to test this yet.

So what is an MVNO, pray tell?

Verizon refers to the new secure SIM as an NFC SE (near field communication secure element) SIM.

VoLTE will only marginally improve normal/good call quality, but can significantly improve static sounding or garbled sound quality in poor signal areas Of the GSM network. For AT&T users this will be a border case, only helpful in specific instances. For Verizon this will be a HUGE boon, as they will FINALLY be able to talk on a call and multitask use the Internet at the same time. Previously this was only possible for Verizon customers if they were in a wifi network while also on a call. At&t users of the iPhone (and t-mobile users, as well as all the GSM MVNOs) have been able to do this for years, so VoLTE is not such an amazing feature.

an MVNO is a Mobile virtual network operator. H2O wireless, cricket, metroPCS, etc are examples. They do not actually own any of the bandwidth, they simply rented from the big four telephone companies and sell it to you at a discounted price. They usually offer both prepaid, and postpaid plans, customer service is usually very poor however, and prices are deeply discounted from regular prices on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and t-mobile. They often do not require credit checks, and have limited selection of phones to sell in their stores. The point is there are many upsides but also downside to using and MVNO as opposed to one of the big four telco companies.

Fred_B wrote:

I realize this is an old thread, but I'd like to comment for future posterity about the situation as I understand it. The Sim card included with the unlocked contract free version of the iPhone6 (T mobile) is in fact a secure SIM. AT&T and Verizon similarly also provide a secure Sim card with the iPhone 6.

The SIMs provided in Verizon iPhones are not the Secure SIMs.

Fred_B wrote:

For Verizon this will be a HUGE boon, as they will FINALLY be able to talk on a call and multitask use the Internet at the same time. Previously this was only possible for Verizon customers if they were in a wifi network while also on a call.

For Verizon iPhone users, you mean. 😉 Verizon Android users have been able to do it for a while as long as they were on 4G LTE networks. The chips used in the Android phones allowed the CDMA voice and the 4G LTE data to work simultaneously, something the chip the iPhone uses doesn't allow.

Yes, sorry if that wasn't clear, I was discussing the improvement for Verizon iPhone users, not Android users. This is a forum on Apple.com, no? And we are discussing the iPhone 6, no?

They meant a SIM with a Secure Element but that would have nothing to do. It always seems that a well-informed consumer knows more than your average AT&T Sales Rep.

I upraded to an HTC One M8 to an iPhone 6 with an installment plan on AT&T. I did have to do some SIM switching only because my entire family was swapping each others phones. But I had no problems once I switched the SIM. Also I believe they removed the activation fee since 2013.

here's how i got mines to work.

the new iPhone 6 comes with a SIM card. leave it in the phone.

use a house phone to call at&t 1-800-331-0500,,

[automation] make your way to "operator" by pressing "0" then to "Technical Support" to "Data Services" until you talk with real person.

tell him that you're just switching phones.

the tech will need; cell phone number, last 4 numbers of your SS, then from the phone he/she will need the IMEI, and ICCID

wait about 5-10, you'll then be asked to power off/on the phone,,,, then BOOM! you should be good-to-go.

good luck ya'll