Will Alltel Activate A Phone Bought Off Ebay And What Costs Are Involved?
When buying phones from eBay, you’ll want to make sure you can activate it on Alltel (i.e., the ESN is “clear”). You can ask the seller for the ESN (electronic serial number) and call Alltel, they should tell you whether they will activate it or not. When you call them, tell them that you’d like to activate a phone on your line. They’ll ask for the ESN and have you reprogram the phone (dialing *228 and pressing send). Of course, you’ll want to call them from a different phone. I don’t believe Alltel charges a fee for swapping ESNs, but I’m not entirely sure.
Yes you can buy a phone off eBay & use it with alltel. You do not have to buy a phone that was designed for Alltel either. You can buy a Verizon phone, or any CDMA phone. Since Alltel utilizes the CDMA cellular protocols, any CDMA phone is compatible. All you have to do is call up Alltel & give them the ESN {Electronic Serial #}. If you buy a phone that wasn’t designed for Alltel, you may have to flash a stock firmware to the phone. This is quite easy, & there are many online forums that tell you how to do it & where to get the firmware {usually for free}. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~… “Unlocked” is for GSM phones only! The CDMA phone are a completely different setup. GSM phones use a sim card that contains all your user data. CDMA phone store an ESN onboard & that to identify you on the network. GSM & CDMA are completely incompatible. You cannot use a GSM phone with a CDMA provider, & visa versa.
