Cell Phones
Cell Phones

Can a prepaid phone be used with a contract?

I got a phone to use with prepaid plan
LG Extravert on ebay
I sold it but the buyer bought it to use with a contract....
and she is not sure if prepaid phone can be used with a contract
I am researching but so confused
Please help

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Anti-MhzAsked: 2012-12-29

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Lee W, MVPConnect With a Mentor Technology and Business Process AdvisorCommented: 2012-12-29

Bottom line is that it depends on whether the phone is locked or not. If it's locked, you'd have to unlock it first. Further, some phones are GSM based and some are CDMA based - they can't work on the other network (GSM will not work on CDMA and CDMA will not work on GSM). In the US, Sprint and Verizon and MOST "lesser" companies like Virgin will only work with CDMA based phones while T-Mobile and AT&T are both GSM based (though as I understand it, T-mobile DATA operates at different frequencies and an AT&T 3G/4G phone may not get T-mobile 3G/4G speeds (may be limited to "EDGE" speeds (2G)).

Yes, it is confusing...

LVL 88

rindiCommented: 2012-12-29

It depends on the country and provider. Here in Switzerland, if the provider of the prepaid phone is Orange, and you have another Orange contract, you can use the sim card of that other Orange contract with your Orange prepaid phone. But you can't use a contract of another provider with the Orange Prepaid phone. Also, as far as I know, with some providers such as swisscom you can't even use the swisscom prepaid phone with a normal swisscom sim card.

Sometimes you can buy yourself out of the prepaid contract and get the phone unlocked, and then you can use any other provider, but that will probably be as expensive as buying a new phone without contract.