Item — HN Reader

Another advantage: an unlocked phone can really help for international travel. I'm heading from the US to Hong Kong and my friends with unlocked phones can get local, prepaid SIM cards for very good voice + data rates.

AT&T has told me that "standard" rates for international roaming in Asia is $2.50/minute (!!) and even the biggest package they have only brings it down to $1.50. It's completely insane. Plus you need to purchase voice roaming, data roaming, and text roaming all separately. Believe it or not, it will actually be slightly cheaper to cancel my AT&T plan, pay the cancellation fee, and switch to TMobile than it would be to purchase all of their punitive roaming services.

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To be fair, Verizon at least, will unlock your phone for international SIM cards if you call them before traveling abroad. Thus allowing you the same advantages. I'd be surprised if AT&T wouldn't do the same.

With newer LTE phones, Verizon "world phones" (i.e. phones with a GSM SIM slot alongwith the CDMA stuff - For eg. iPhone 5, 5c and 5s) already come GSM "unlocked". This is apparently not out of the goodness of their hearts but because of some LTE spectrum agreements with the FCC. The kicker though is that the phones will favor the Verizon network while in the US.

Oh, so this really is a Verizon specific thing, huh?

The rep I chatted with said that AT&T phones "cannot work with other SIMs." The implication was that they cannot be unlocked. Seems fishy, though, so I'm going to confirm. Anyone have experience here?

https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/client/en_US/termsAndCondit...

*edited - I've only done this with iPhones but my understanding is that it can be done with any phone once out of contract.