Sim cards

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Maybe a little off topic for here, but .......

Are all mobile phone sim cards interchangeable ?
I have a very old phillips phone and a siemens 55 both on the O2 pay as you go. The sim card from the siemens works in the much older phillips but putting the phillips in the siemens gives access to phone book and messages etc, but gives a card error on trying to establish a network connection.
I'll be very happy to be educated on sim cards, thanks.
 
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Was the siemens provided by orange/virgin or t-mobile? If so, the phone may be locked to the original network. generally only O2 and Vodaphone do not lock their phones to a single network. You can overcome this in most cases. try on the net for phone unlocking codes. However, I have a feeling the Siemens A55 (if thats what you have) is only un-lockable by someone by computer.

Hopefully this is of help.

Jim
 
Thanks for the reply. Yes the siemens is the A55 and was bought from carphone warehouse with the O2 pay as you go sim. This business of being locked is new to me so not sure how it works. Would it still apply if as I said both the sims are for O2 pay as you go ?
 
I was under the impression that O2 didnt lock their phones. and even if they did, it should work with another o2 sim card.

the only other thing i can suggest is take it to a shop (not a franchised retailer) and see if they can unlock it for you.
 
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jime17 said:
I was under the impression that O2 didnt lock their phones. and even if they did, it should work with another o2 sim card.

the only other thing i can suggest is take it to a shop (not a franchised retailer) and see if they can unlock it for you.
The phone isn't locked
putting the phillips in the siemens gives access to phone book and messages etc, but gives a card error on trying to establish a network connection.
The guy in the O2 shop has told me (not sure if a fob off but he seemed sure) that the very old sims won't work as some (many) years ago the method of connecting to the network was changed.. Consistent with what the phones says....
Thanks for you inputs.....
 
The situation can be a little more complex. o2 do lock the majority of handsets to their network if on a contract. (They need to recover the subsidised cost of the handset via their tarrif). There is also a SIM incompatibility between early handsets and later ones I believe, but I don't know much about this. As you can read the phonebook I don't think this is the issue. The other issue is the frequency bands that the handsets are capable of. This is becoming less of an issue with tri-band and quad band phones but earlier phones may work on Vodafone and O2 (900MHz) but not Orange (1800MHz). This could prevent the handset working if the hardware is not capable.
 

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