Duh-- Didn't know there was a SIM card.

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May 31, 2002
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St. Charles County, Missouri
Have had Boost for almost a decade now. Never had to try their customer service til this one. Hint- it sucks. Maybe Dish fired a bunch of people, nothing on their voice lines but endless options that lead to no one. No chat that I can find. They do have a consumer board but lots of the questions look like they go unanswered. I've set foot in their stores and find them scary, besides I got the phone at a better price direct and I don't feel right about that.

So this is the post I made to the Boost user board. Thought I'd repost here just in case. To repeat: the phone runs fine without the sim, but I suspect I'm forgoing any access to the T/Mo GSM towers and God knows what's going to happen to the Sprint CDMA stuff which is non existant in rural America anyway.

"Got my new LG51 yesterday. Working fine. This morning I looked at the bottom of the box and saw the SIM card tucked in a flap. Envelope says Important. I assume this is used to broaden my coverage to TMo's GSM. Can I put it in after the phone is activated or will that do irreparable damage?"
 
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I thought phones needed a SIM card to work at all. So, guess I'm no help. I'd put it in and see what happens. You might have one in there already.
 
Got an almost instant response from Boost, asking that I send SIM card number on a PM. Sorry I bad mouthed them, I hope. I'll repost when this is solved. My suspicion is the last suggestion is correct. Turn it off and put it in. Never had to do this before, but that was before the deal was worked out for Dish to get TMo access for seven years.
 
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Originally Posted by Leo99
I thought phones needed a SIM card to work at all. So, guess I'm no help. I'd put it in and see what happens. You might have one in there already.

Old 2/3G CDMA phones didn't need a SIM to work. The 4G LTE/5G specs allow for use of an eSIM that is "paired" to your account and downloaded to your phone. One drawback of an eSIM is that if you wipe your phone for any reason it's gone since it's software defined.
 
I wouldn't bet on a SIM not being able to be moved from phone to phone, I can move my Tracfone ones around pretty much at will from one GSM iPhone to another, from an iPhone 6, to a 7, to my SE (all GSM [ex-AT&T] phones).
 
Originally Posted by nthach
Originally Posted by Leo99
I thought phones needed a SIM card to work at all. So, guess I'm no help. I'd put it in and see what happens. You might have one in there already.

Old 2/3G CDMA phones didn't need a SIM to work. The 4G LTE/5G specs allow for use of an eSIM that is "paired" to your account and downloaded to your phone. One drawback of an eSIM is that if you wipe your phone for any reason it's gone since it's software defined.


Now that you mention it. I don't recall the early my Verizon phones having SIM cards.
 
Originally Posted by Leo99
Originally Posted by nthach
Originally Posted by Leo99
I thought phones needed a SIM card to work at all. So, guess I'm no help. I'd put it in and see what happens. You might have one in there already.

Old 2/3G CDMA phones didn't need a SIM to work. The 4G LTE/5G specs allow for use of an eSIM that is "paired" to your account and downloaded to your phone. One drawback of an eSIM is that if you wipe your phone for any reason it's gone since it's software defined.


Now that you mention it. I don't recall the early my Verizon phones having SIM cards.
Any iPhone 4 or older didn't need a SIM card, but Verizon retired their CDMA network, leaving VoLTE as the only way to make calls on their network, so I had to retire the 4 for my (old style)) SE.
 
SIM cards were originally developed for GSM networks,

That's why phones designed for CDMA carriers (Verizon/Sprint) didn't use them. They adopted them to provide dual CDMA/LTE compatibility.

Verizon's CDMA network will be shut down at the end of 2020, and Sprint will follow within a couple years, if not sooner, with the T-Mo merger.

It's dictated by the network technology, not the maker or phone model. Every GSM phone has a SIM card, including every pertinent iPhone dating all the way back to the original, which was an AT&T exclusive.
 
what Carmudgeon said.

Verizon hasn't Shut their CDMA network YET, they keep pushing it back.. was originally supposed to be the Fall of '18...(all Canadian operators shut theirs down in 2016 FWIW), but they DID stop activating anything that wasn't VoLTE sometime in.... '19? i think?

Which, if you're in the iPhone world, means nothing older than the iPhone 6.
The Verizon iPhone 5 had a 4GLTE radio, but only used it for Data, it still used a separate CDMA Radio for Voice. it was Hardware capable of VoLTE, but not software enabled...
How do I know this specific information?
My Brother was in need of a new phone, last fall, and had found a N.O.S. Verizon iPhone 5 at his work they were throwing out.... I researched, and had to break it to him..., but he also found an iPhone 6(maybe 7?) similarly N.O.S. in the same Cleanout..
 
Originally Posted by earlyre


Verizon hasn't Shut their CDMA network YET, they keep pushing it back.. was originally supposed to be the Fall of '18...(all Canadian operators shut theirs down in 2016 FWIW), but they DID stop activating anything that wasn't VoLTE sometime in.... '19? i think?

A lot of IoT and things like mobile routers that have a CDMA radio on it use Verizon or Sprint. Sprint found a small niche providing service for IoT devices that need cellular capabilities.

Many fire alarm and security systems regardless of who made the panel/console or who's providing the monitoring service use Verizon or AT&T for their cellular communicators. I think Honeywell/Resideo preferred Verizon due to coverage.
 
Sprint no longer exists as a company, T-Mobile purchased and now owns them.
Over the next few years the Sprint name will cease to exist and all current Sprint customers will be moved onto TMobile network.
T-Mobile may become an interesting competitor for ATT and Verizon now by Tmobile upgrading Sprint towers to their system will provide a modern and robust (5g)network if they do it right.

A far as what happens with Boost, I guess that will depend if TMobile thinks its worth keeping alive.
 
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All along, one of the offerings to the Feds to gain approval for the TMO/Sprint merger was to offload Boost and some spectrum to Dish. That deal was finalized recently.
Charlie Ergen is a bold fellow, but Dish has never been in the phone carrier business.

TMO US was originally created when Deutsche Telekom, its parent,, bought into the U.S. market a couple decades ago. After floundering for a decade, it gave up and tried to sell TMO to AT&T, but that was blocked by the Feds.

A couple years later, Legere (Mr. Un-carrier, and an accomplished cook) was hired, and finally built it into a viable third carrier. His departure came this year, a month earlier than planned.

With TMO in a much stronger position, and bolstered by the Sprint merger,, DT has worked a deal to have first dibs at the TMO stake the Japanese own, if they should sell.

TMO under Legere helped stir the market. Hopefully, Sievert will carry on that mantle.
 
Originally Posted by nthach
Originally Posted by earlyre


Verizon hasn't Shut their CDMA network YET, they keep pushing it back.. was originally supposed to be the Fall of '18...(all Canadian operators shut theirs down in 2016 FWIW), but they DID stop activating anything that wasn't VoLTE sometime in.... '19? i think?

A lot of IoT and things like mobile routers that have a CDMA radio on it use Verizon or Sprint. Sprint found a small niche providing service for IoT devices that need cellular capabilities.

Many fire alarm and security systems regardless of who made the panel/console or who's providing the monitoring service use Verizon or AT&T for their cellular communicators. I think Honeywell/Resideo preferred Verizon due to coverage.


I know that OnStar uses verizon, and a lot of newer chrysler products have a sprint connected radio in their infotainment systems for OTA updates,etc.

It's also what those "white hat" hackers used to take control of a jeep a few years ago..
 
Originally Posted by Carmudgeon


TMO US was originally created when Deutsche Telekom, its parent,, bought into the U.S. market a couple decades ago. After floundering for a decade, it gave up and tried to sell TMO to AT&T, but that was blocked by the Feds.


It was Voicestream Deutche Telekom bought in the late 1990s and rebranded as T-Mobile USA in the early 2000s. And their network as dysmal. In Calfornia, it was overlaid on the already sub-par PacBell Wireless/Cingular GSM1900 network. When AT&T merged with SBC, Cingular was of course now part of the "new" AT&T and took on the AT&T Wireless brand - the old network in CA was sold to T-Mobile as a condition of merger. If it wasn't for T-Mobile getting rights to the AWS bands, they would have been hobbled for spectrum. AT&T and Verizon already own the A & B cellular spectrum licenses.
 
Originally Posted by alarmguy
Sprint no longer exists as a company, T-Mobile purchased and now owns them.
Over the next few years the Sprint name will cease to exist and all current Sprint customers will be moved onto TMobile network.
T-Mobile may become an interesting competitor for ATT and Verizon now by Tmobile upgrading Sprint towers to their system will provide a modern and robust (5g)network if they do it right.

A far as what happens with Boost, I guess that will depend if TMobile thinks its worth keeping alive.

It's sold to Dish. Hence my original post. Seven years of access to TMO towers.Hence my concern about being restricted to Sprint. BTW they said they'd get back to me but never did.
 
Follow up. Replaced sim in phone with one in box. Didn't work. Went to store. Found out original SIM was correct. Extra SIM was junk tossed under flap in box. Thank God I didn't toss the original.
 
I use Consumer Cellular and they use either AT&T or T Mobile. I use ATT on my phone and T Mobile for a hotspot home internet access.

But you can get either SIM and then call CC to have it activated. It takes a while if you do it twice. I think they drag as they want at least 30 days on a network. But once a SIM is activated and then if you take it out and get another, the first SIM if unused, will expire.
 
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