Tracfone users on ATT Towers Pay attention
Public Service Announcement.. Somewhere along the way in the last yr or so, Tracfone has dropped support for ATT cell Towers for NEW USERS AND CURRENT USERS who change phones (upgrade/replacement) ...
Forum Discussion
FlatBroke wrote:
Had Tracfone for years, never new they were any thing but Verizon.
Taken from Google: However, Verizon devices will not work with Sprint services and vice versa. GSM Technology: AT&T and T-mobile both run off GSM technology. Unlike CDMA, GSM carriers are compatible with one another. An AT&T phone will work on T-Mobile services.
Verizon is GDMA, AT&T is GSM.
Umm.. Motorola says you are wrong..
HERE
Most if not all cell phones manufactured in the last 4-5 yrs ARE compatible with both GSM AND CDMA even though you may find other info which says not.
The trick is to either have the carrier UNLOCK the phone (IE out of contract the carrier can unlock the phone) or you can buy a new unlocked phone. When unlocked, the phone now can use either network and that is selected via the SIM card.
That is how and why the BYOP (Bring You Own Phone)is possible between different carries like Verizon, ATT and Trac. It is also why and how a Trac phone could operate on ATT or Verizon, Trac selects the carrier tower preference via the SIM card.
I HAVE been down that road with Trac, tried an unlocked phone on Trac, we did get it running on ATT towers, however Trac did not do the required follow up with the phone vendor (IE report the identification number as active) and bricked the phone (I was able to return the phone to the vendor since it was within the return window). After Trac bricked the phone, they claimed we did not have service in my area..
Couldn't figure out why they kept claiming we had no service since we HAVE been using Trac for better part of 10 yrs in our area!
Yeah, the loss of ATT agreements makes PERFECT sense that they would no longer service my area since Verizon only has one tower within 10 miles of my home..
Also makes sense that we were having difficult time even finding Tracfones in our local stores, no service=no sales and no sales the stores won't make any profits on non moving inventory..
If you are not in a rural area that is only serviced with one service, you will not understand the implications of this change..
