Verizon Unlocked Phone Policy

[rde34]

What is Verizon's official policy on activating purchased unlocked phones for use with an existing Verizon account? And what are the determining factors when considering an unlocked phone on the Verizon network? For instance, can I just grab the coolest unlocked Nokia multimedia phone to activate and use with my account? Thanks in advance for any information you can offer.

[ClwTL]

there are several parts to this question. The first is that there is no offical "unlocked phone" policy with verizon wireless. you can activate any verizon wireless phone as cpe or customer provided equipment. the cpe handset has no warranty so be advised that any issues with the phone will not be covered at a vzw location. You can activate cpe handsets for free online at vzw.com in my account or pay $20 to do it in the store.

The second part of your question is the challenging part. You meantioned a cool new nokia multimedia phone. nokia has largely stopped producing phones for vzw and the ones they do have are made by a company called pantech which makes middle-grade phones but nothing super flashy. This leads me to believe you are referring to unlocked gsm phones which will never work on verizon's network due to it being cdma. the phone will never see vzw's towers and will never work.

[ClwTL]

caution. if you do find an unlocked alltel phone you are welcome to activate it to vzw's network but the catch is the phone's computer will always think it is roaming on vzw's network and verizon is not liable for any roaming charges you may recieve. in addition, mobile to mobile minutes probably won't work because the phone still thinks it is altell. in all honesty it isn't worth it. there are plenty of things you can do to a verizon phone with a data cable and software to customize it... and unless you really screw up, you can reverse all of the shady things you do to the phone if you ever have equipment issues so the staff doesn't know you played around with it.