Unlocked phones and Cingular

[MaggieScratch]

I'm new to smartphones, but I am excited about the Treo 680. I love my Tungsten E2 and need a new mobile phone, and I just got a little bonus at work, so I thought I would treat myself and upgrade when the 680 comes out. I'm so excited that they are continuing to offer Treos with the Palm OS!

I'm a little confused about the unlocked business and am hoping that someone can answer some questions for me.

If I purchase an unlocked 680, I can then go to Cingular and get their $19.99 per month SmartPhone Connect plan and any voice plan I want? With no contract? Can I get a prepaid voice plan?

How does it work? Do I call them or go to the Cingular store and say, "Hey, I have this unlocked phone, hook me up with a plan" and they will cheerfully help me?

The way I understand it, I'll pay a little more upfront for the phone, but have more control over which carrier I use.

Sorry to be dopey. I have only ever had the prepaid Verizon mobile phone plan so I'm not conversant with phone contracts and monthly plans in general. TIA!

[skoenig]

Welcome MaggieScratch,

You've got the nub of it right. Buying a phone out of contract is more expensive because a carrier isn't subsidising it's cost in anticipation of a commitment from you. A downside to a lower initial cost is that the phone is very often tied or locked to that carrier as are you for about 2 years. Your call charges will be substantially lower than your current pre-paid option.

Pretty much everything else falls from those initial conditions.

Yes you can buy a phone out of contract and 'unlocked' and then hook it up to the cheerful staff at Cingular - they haven't had to subsidise the cost of the phone and so actually make MORE money out of you from the fixed service fee portion of your monthly bill and you get the freedom to leave your contract if you want.

Andrew wrote about it here.

It basically depends on whether you like your freedom or not and how much money you can spend upfront.

If you travel internationally unlocking your phone is very useful (even if you are in-contract) because when you visit the 90% of the world that use GSM you can buy a local SIM card and make/receive calls from the US very very cheaply - all you have to do is pass on your local number.

To recap there's actually two concepts here: locked and contracted.

Locked
A locked phone is software locked to ONLY operate with a particular carrier. You can unlock many phones with software keys generated using a key-generator that takes a combination of model number, IEMI orESN and carrier name to produce a special code you can type in to 'unlock' various aspects of the phone. GSM phones are commonly locked when subsidised. A carrier may unlock the phone for a fee providing you are no longer in your contract period.

Contracted
If you purchase a subsidised phone you often have to commit to a plan and that plan will have a term (often 2 years) during which you are obligated to pay monthly fees for service - most plans allow you to switch during your term within reason - the 680 ones will only allow limited switching (you cannot switch off the data plan for instance). At the end of your term the phone (and you) are now out of contract. The carrier will try to entice you into a new contract with an incentive such as a new subsidised phone. At that point the phone may be sold and the service terminated with no penalties. You may also be able to unlock the phone (for use on other carriers) legally.

My advice when buying an unlocked phone is to wait until the model's honeymoon period is over. Early on there are huge premiums on unlocked/out of contract new model phones and these fall quite quickly with time.

I bought a good condition barely used 700p 2 months ago with what they call a clean ESN (for CDMA networks like Sprint and Verizon there is no SIM, the network uses the phone's ESN), 512MB SD Card, Original Palm leather case, car charger and Clear Case for only $120 more than Sprint were charging for a subsidised phone with 2 year contract.

I walked into Sprint and hooked up the phone in about 5 minutes.

And yes the guy was very cheerful and advised me to hard reset the phone if I'd bought it from ebay to clear out any programs and settings the previous owner may have had.

If you absolutely must have the latest model as soon as it comes out I think the best deal is to get tied to a carrier and get it on the subsidised rate - you'll pay the same net present value over time anyway but you'll be tied for two years to that carrier. You can change phone but you'll have to get an unlocked phone and swap out the current phone (which I've also done before).

Hope this helps a little

~ Steph

[MaggieScratch]

Yes, Steph, that's very helpful, thank you!

I definitely want a Treo and am only trying to decide between models at this point. The 680 seems to be just right, but I'm a little concerned about the monthly costs associated with Cingular. It seems that if you get a contract for a subsidized phone, you're not only locked into the carrier but your choice of plans is restricted. Does anyone know the difference between the SmartPhone plan for $19.99 per month and the Data Connect plan for $44.99? Can I even use the cheaper plan with a Treo? It seems like it's more for the entry-level smartphones than an actual PDA phone.

I'm just not thrilled about paying $40 a month for a voice phone that I'll hardly use (that's why I've always had prepaid phones). I don't mind paying for the data plan, I'll be a power user of the e-mail.

[forgot]

I spoke with a rep when I got my Treo from Cingular, and they said that the Data Connect plan is for unlimited data use on a pda phone. Not really sure what the difference is, other than they can charge you more money. Anyone else know the difference?

[mceb]

Good thread since I'm a newbie to this as well. I read somewhere else they try to push you into the $40 plan and the only difference was ability to do VPN for corporate e-mail push. I'm not 100% sure if that is correct but sounds like a marketing thing to do, charge double for business accounts

On the whole unlocked angle. I read somewhere that if you buy an unlocked phone and stay with the same carrier you can just pop out your SIM card from your old phone and plug it right into new Treo without even calling Cingular. Does anyone know if it's that easy? I have a SonyEricsson z520 and will be buying a Treo 680 so the locked vs. unlocked thing is something I need to understand.

[brandon]

the only problem i had with swapping sim cards was i had a 32k sim from a moto v400 i intended to use in my 650. mi amigo @ cingy said the sim card does make a difference and gave me a new 64k sim free. the sim on the 680 is under the battery, from what we've been told. just pop it out, slide it into the treo and you're in business.

[MaggieScratch]

Originally Posted by mceb

I read somewhere else they try to push you into the $40 plan and the only difference was ability to do VPN for corporate e-mail push.

Reading the plan descriptions carefully, I think you're right! And I will be using my Treo for personal stuff, not business.

If I could combine the SmartPhone connect with the prepaid calling plan that would be really ideal for me.

[dcsparky]

I Have a cingular plan with the Unlimited internet and email for $19.99. I originally purchased a internet ready phone and then installed the sim card into my treo 650. And it works great.

When I inquired about the data plan for the treo they tried to hook me up with data plan for $40.00 because the $19.99 plan is only for the wap enabled phones.

don't ask don't tell works here too.

[MaggieScratch]

I've seen Cingular prepaid SIMs available online--would I be able to buy that, activate it, and then add the $19.99 data plan, I wonder?

[skoenig]

Thats a cunning idea and and almost British way of legally trying to cheat the system. You could worse than ask but I suspect they wouldn't have any of it...

You never know though you might get a clerk who wasn't paying attention during the sales briefing..

~Steph