CDMA iPhone 4 unlocked, Pay-as-you-go Cricket iPhone 4 now possible
The CDMA iPhone 4 has been unlocked in the USA, allowing you to use the iPhone as a pay-as-you-go phone on Cricket Wireless. Comments from the YouTube video (embedded below) suggest that Cricket stores are performing the service for $125 and that the iPhone 4 will then work on Cricket or MetroPCS networks as a pay-as-you-go phone.
What’s required? You’ll have to get your hands on an off-contract Verizon iPhone 4 (or pay the termination fee), and then you’ll need to jailbreak the iPhone 4 and take it over to Cricket wireless for some custom MMS update. The process seems similar to what China Telecom figured out with their own unlocked CMDA iPhone.
Pay-as-you-go iPhones work, but not officially supported… yet
Remember, no iPhone has been officially released as a pay as you go phone, but we have showed you how to get an iPhone 4 setup as a pay-go AT&T phone and you can also setup a prepaid iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G too. Both of these work without jailbreaking if you stay with AT&T’s Pay Go plans.
An official prepaid iPhone may be in the works though, as hinted by Apple’s COO Tim Cook, but it’s unclear whether such a device would be intended for the US market.
The CDMA iPhone 4 now appears to be unlocked in the USA and China, meaning additional CDMA networks may soon support the hardware. This could theoretically include Sprint, China Mobile, and Japans DoCoMo.
Video via Enagadet
The link below shows C-Spire a new carrier in Mississippi that now sells the Iphone 4s to its customers…this is how you know all these phones have been available all this time in CDMA carriers like Cricket…..Makes you think
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/why-apple-added-little-known-c-spire-as-a-us-iphone-carrier.ars
The author has little about what he’s talking about in the last sentence of the blog post.
China Mobile utilizes GSM 900Mhz/1800Mhz + 2G(GPRS) as well as its own version of 3G (TD-SCDMA), which completely different technology than CDMA 1x/EVDO Rev. A. China Telecom, on the hand, is a carrier utilizes CDMA EVVO Rev. A technology.
“Remember, no iPhone has been officially released as a pay as you go phone”
I think you’ll find it has and for quite some time too…
http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/iphoneindex/Pay_And_Go/4/Black