IOS – How to know what’s the iphone 4s carrier using IMEI

cdmacellular-carriersiosiphoneunlock

I have an iphone 4s ios 6.1.3 my cousin bought it from U.S.A or so he says. He says the carrier is Verizon CDMA. However in the settings I see carrier: virgin 14.0

I am outside the USA so i need a sim unlock, I contacted virgin USA, they said that the IMEI is not registered in the system, i need to contact apple they will unlock it.

I contacted apple USA on the phone, they said they don't unlock phones, they only help with hardware issues, I need to contact virgin to unlock it!

I contacted a local apple store, I asked them how to know whats my carrier? They said virgin 14.0 is nothing, not important, it doesn't mean that my iphone is virgin
I gave them the IMEI and they are trying to see if it can be unlocked.

I have some questions:

How to know what's the carrier using IMEI? My IMEI is 99 000266 076389 5 I tried to use an online IMEI checker, it only says service expired
How to know in which country it was registered? As you know virgin and other carriers are available in many countries, I want to know what support team I should contact.
Since the phone seems to be locked to the carrier, is there a way to know what's the iphone phone number was using IMEI?

Best Answer

Apple can't unlock your phone. That sort of thing is about carrier networks and it can only be unlocked by the carrier that the device is locked to.

Related Solutions

IPhone – Using an iPhone 4S in South Korea

It will work on KT (they even sold the 3GS which wasn't CDMA), and possibly others.

He may need to get the IMEI registered with the network before the SIM will work in it though as they are very protective over their networks (this was true up until 2010 at least, although they may have become more relaxed on this since then).

IPhone – How to use a iPhone 4S (that was activated on a CDMA carrier) with a local GSM network

The answer to this question is slightly complicated and in essence becomes: it depends which CDMA carrier device you purchased and which GSM carrier you want to switch to.

First the facts - there are three "models" of iPhone 4s sold according to the model number on the back cover:

A1431: iPhone 4s (GSM model China)
A1387: iPhone 4s (CDMA model)
A1387: iPhone 4s (GSM model)

People wanting to use models A1431 and A1387 on CDMA networks are basically out of luck as there seems to be no support from Apple to reprogram the device to even work on CDMA. I don't know if it's a hardware issue or just drivers/software, but it's clearly stated in the Technical Specifications as footnote 3:

3. CDMA available only if iPhone 4S is sold and activated for use on a CDMA network.

There is no indication that GSM is not available on CDMA phones, however my experience is that CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint won't unlock the GSM sim slot until between 30 and 90 days after you have initiated service on that line.

Additionally, I have heard reports that the unlock is smart enough to prevent a GSM carrier that competes with the CDMA carrier from taking over service of the device. So, in the USA - a Sprint or Verizon phone would not be expected to work with AT&T or T-Mobile USA cards, but would be expected to work with any European, Asian, or other non-US based GSM carrier. I do know of many people that have travelled internationally with Sprint or Verizon iPhone 4S and had no problem once they unlocked, but I've not heard that any GSM card works - either while the phone is under contract with the original CDMA carrier or after that contract period expires.

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