Sprint iPhone

I am quite the novice so I apologize in advance of my question. I have an IPhone 4S that I bought from Sprint. A. Is it already unlocked? B. If it isn't unlocked can it be and how? I am getting nowhere with Sprint. I assume because they don't want to lose money.

JFaucett said:

I am quite the novice so I apologize in advance of my question. I have an IPhone 4S that I bought from Sprint. A. Is it already unlocked? B. If it isn't unlocked can it be and how? I am getting nowhere with Sprint. I assume because they don't want to lose money.

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How this typically works is that when you buy a phone at the "subsidized price", the phone is locked to the carrier until you have fulfilled the terms of your contract. Typically the contract is 2 years, or you can pay an Early Termination Fee (ETF) to exit the contract early. The ETF basically is to finish paying off your phone. The $200+ you buy an iPhone for on-contract is NOT the full price of the iPhone. They are more like $600+. It's essentially a down payment and you are paying the rest off by way of your cell service fees. Once your contract is fulfilled or terminated, Sprint's policy is to unlock it on request. They don't unlock it beforehand because then people would just take the phone for cheap and renege on their contract. So yes, they don't want to lose money, nor should they want to.

If you are going over seas, Sprint will unlock the phone for you to use there. But you're out of luck for it being Unlocked here in the States, as they can and do unlock one region and not the other, since the on board SIM chip has a different ID. You should have gone with Verizon. Their phones are globally unlocked. If you're still within the return period, I'd return it. Besides, Sprints service for anything aside from voice absolutely stinks on ice. Whooptie doo for their "unlimited data", when it's useless.

I can only hope that Sprint will fix their awful 3g trunk lines when they finally decide to roll out LTE within the next couple years. If my bill wasn't $60, they'd be out the window already. Plus, it's my wife who uses that line, not me. I'm doing marginally better with ATT. Planning on going VZN at some point. That is, unless T-Mo gets their acts together sooner than Sprint.

Doug