Your two-year contract is finally up, and you want to save some money by bringing your phone to a carrier with lower monthly costs. Unfortunately, odds are that your phone is carrier locked, which prevents you from jumping ship and using your phone on another network. Thankfully, some carriers could already unlock your phone voluntarily, but the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, which was signed into law early last month, set the unlock requirement in stone.

Now that unlocking your phone is legal, let’s dive into what you’d want to do if opt to unlock your phone through your carrier.

You’ll need a few things, first

Before you set your mind on unlocking your phone, you’ll need to keep in mind that doing so isn’t a fast process by any stretch of the imagination. Unlocking your phone potentially takes several phone calls and hours. In addition, unlocking your phone before you leave your current carrier would be wise, as the incentive to help you through the process won’t be as prevalent.

With that in mind, there are a few nuggets of information you’ll need:

• The account holder’s name and account number
• IMEI of your device
• Your phone number
• The account holder’s social security number or password
• A finished contract
• Overseas deployment papers, if the nature of your inquiry involves you being in the military and wanting to unlock your phone before your contract is up

Now that you have that information by your side, let’s see how each carrier handles unlocking your phone.

• Verizon
• AT&T
• T-Mobile
• Sprint

Unlocking a Verizon phone

Even though Verizon uses CDMA instead of GSM, most of Big Red’s devices come with an unlocked SIM card slot. According to Verizon, its 4G LTE devices aren’t locked and, if you want to bring one of them to another carrier, there is no code needed to program the phone to play nice with it.

However, even though SIM-equipped Verizon phones can be used on AT&T, T-Mobile, or other GSM carriers, the phone will need to have roaming GSM radios in order to make phone calls and send texts in the United States. While most recent Verizon handsets will work just fine on American GSM bands, your mileage will vary when it comes to LTE support.

Even though Verizon doesn’t have an online unlock request, you can call 1-800-711-8300 and request a SIM unlock.

Unlocking an AT&T phone

By comparison, you’ll need to jump through a few more hoops with AT&T than you do with Verizon when it comes to unlocking your phone. The phone will need to be from either a current or former subscriber, with verification by way of a phone number or account number. In addition, the phone must not have been reported stolen or lost and you’ll need to have paid off the device in full. Finally, keep in mind that AT&T customers are allowed a maximum of five unlocks per account per year.

Thankfully, unlike Verizon, you can fill out an online unlock request, so long as you have the IMEI number. After doing so, you’ll need to wait a few days for the unlock code to come in through your email. Even though you can reach customer support at 1-800-331-0500, AT&T doesn’t officially unlock your phone over the phone.

Unlocking a T-Mobile phone

There are four things to keep in mind if you want to unlock your T-Mobile phone:

1. It must be a device from T-Mobile
2. It must not have been reported lost or stolen
3. It must be attached to an account with “good standing”
4. Customers are allowed a maximum of two unlocks per year

In addition, you’ll need to have made at least $100 in refills if you want to unlock your T-Mobile prepaid smartphone. So long as you meet those requirements, you can either unlock your phone through a live chat with a T-Mobile customer representative or call 1-800-746-0949 from a T-Mobile device. Alternatively, you can dial 611.

Unlocking a Sprint phone

Before unlocking your Sprint phone, you’ll need to have an active account with the carrier, verified either through an account number or a phone number. In addition, the account needs to be in “good standing” and you can’t have reported the phone as stolen or lost. If you’re a member of the U.S. military deployed overseas and you want your Sprint phone unlocked, the same requirements apply.

However, there is a huge caveat with Sprint: its iPhones cannot be unlocked. According to Sprint, “Sprint-branded iPhones have been manufactured in a way that prevents them from being unlocked to allow the device to activate on a different carrier’s network in the United States.” While the situation for other Sprint phones is better, the radios built into them makes it difficult to use them on other CDMA and LTE networks.

Sprint’s prepaid situation when it comes to unlocking devices is even worse, as both Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile currently cannot unlock those devices. Help is on the way, though, as these policies conflict with the recently-passed Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act.

For now, though, you can unlock your Sprint phone either through an online chat with a customer representative or call 1-888-211-4727 (*2 from a Sprint device).

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/phone-unlocking-guide-for-all-carriers/2/#ixzz3G4Eqe0W9 
Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | digitaltrendsftw on Facebook