[tweet https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/526089456898809856]
There’s been some confusion about the new Apple SIM that is included in many of the new iPad Air 2 and Mini 3s. On Friday it was revealed that AT&T would lock the Apple SIM effectively making the Apple SIM an AT&T SIM and rendering the whole excercise pointless. T-Mobile and Sprint, on the other hand, will let you trade back and forth between their networks at will and we found out this morning that makes buying roaming data less expensive when travelling.
But there is a lot of confusion to the “why’s and how’s” of the Apple that T-Mobile’s CEO breaks down below. Note that Legere just pulled off a coup becoming the only US wireless carrier to allow Apple’s iPhone to use Wifi calling and clearly Apple and T-Mobile like what each other are doing.
The whole “tweetstorm” is below.
(Get this guy and @pmarca a blog – don’t make Tweetstorms a thing)
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So, it sounds like the safest bet is to buy an iPad from T*Mobile… ?
Almost sounds like the safest bet is, if you have a phone that can tether, just get the wifi only model. lol
Well you can buy one from anyone BUT AT&T, and the sim will work wherever.
How much you wanna bet that if you tried to buy an LTE iPad Air 2 from an AT&T store without activating it, they would throw a fit and say that you are legal obligated to allow them to lock the sim before they give it to you?
No they won’t. ATT does not require a contract for your iPad. I own an ATT iPad. You pay as you go. The only time they require a locked sim is when you are tied to a contract. On my iPad I pay for 1 month at a time for the data that I want at that time and nothing more.
Some good insight from him.
Here are the facts. T-Mobile has done some great work and I have both AT&T and T-Mobile (Business and Personal) AT&T is the business account and the T-Mobile blows their service out of the water. T-Mobile is way cool about unlocking phones. AT&T are pricks about it. Additionally, if you purchase a phone online that was on the AT&T network and it is locked, it is locked under the original owners name and the IMEI is is married to the original phone number and account of the original owner. This means if you travel somewhere (take the Bahamas for instance – you can put a Bahama Telecom Company BTC SIM in your phone and have local service and internet) you do not have the freedom to use the phone you thought you owned on their network because, simply put, though you may have paid 5 or 6 hundred dollars for it, you don’t truly own the phone until it is unlocked and released form the previous owners account. Devices remaining locked outside of contracts is NOT freedom. And AT&T is the one taking that freedom from us. http://tech55i.com
Someone needs to teach Legere how to attach a picture with a wall of text to his tweet so he can get his weed-fueled points across without tweet-spamming.
“Weed-fueled” or not, he generally makes a lot more sense than any of the other asshole telecom CEOs.
Original GSM SIM concept was that you can switch SIM and connect your same device to another carrier. Why do complicate it all just to avoid a SIM switch? Americans are too bored about changing a SIM?
The new chipset is apparently able to do GSM, CDMA & LTE. Apple is making an effort to make a “universal” SIM to go with this. If the carriers were more cooperative, it would only be a matter of calling an appropriate carrier and asking them to activate the SIM for their network. No going to the store or waiting for a SIM to be shipped to you, just switch by contacting the carrier. At this point, you can buy a cell capable iPad with a SIM that can be activated on one of 3 networks when new. It’s the carriers that make the limitations after this. And, as already stated, Verizon isn’t playing this “game”, their prefer to call their own shots, still need their own SIM.
Apple is ultimately trying to free us from carrier restrictions, but, the carriers have a hard time letting go, they think they have an advantage by locking us into their network. Apple is starting with the iPads, but, I’m sure they will eventually do this with the iPhone as well.
Eventually, cell phone carriers will simply be ISPs, but, they are trying to keep their current business model as long as they can. T-Mobile is the only one that seems to not be holding back…first with WiFi hotspots, first with HD calling, first with WiFi calling, first with VoLTE calls, etc….
• If you go back a couple years, the carriers were not happy with Apple’s iMessage…texting others with iMessage over cell data or wifi without counting against your cell carrier’s text plan. Apple is the one trying to open things up.
tweetstorm in deed
This is a guy who last year promised $0 Don iPaid Air w Free Data & failed to deliver. Talk about confusion.
If I buy the SIM included when I buy the iPad, what right does AT&T have to lock *my* SIM?