Thursday, October 13, 2011

SPRINT iPHONE 4S WILL BE SHIPPED UNLOCKED

A few days ago, Macworld reported that the Sprint iPhone 4S would ship with an unlocked micro-sim slot allowing users to avoid costly roaming fees when traveling outside of the country. Sprint came forward publicly a short time after and denied all reports of their version of the iPhone 4S being shipped unlocked.


Earlier today Sprint came out and publicly addressed this ambiguous issue. Sprint's iPhone 4S will be shipped as an unlocked phone, but Sprint went on to say that they would lock the device shortly after launch, and then in the future would allow users (that were in good standing) to re-unlock the phone. They did not elaborate as to how they planned on locking the devices. It will be interesting to see how they plan on doing this, and if there is a way for users to avoid any kind of settings update.

Sprint and Verizon iPhone 4S models will ship with "roaming SIMs" from the respective carriers, allowing customers to access the networks of their international carrier partners but at the higher roaming prices. But customers who request that the micro-SIM slot be unlocked will be able to remove that card and insert lower-cost local cards when they travel.

I am excited to receive the phone tomorrow and see if it really is unlocked.

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