Telecom locked phones on skinny

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom locked phones on skinny

1101

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#189308 23-Dec-2015 15:27

Hi there
Will telecom locked cellphones work on skinny ?

nakedmolerat

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#1456063 23-Dec-2015 15:36

Telecom doesn't exist anymore.

Skinny does lock some of their phones (cheaper end).

kotuku4

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#1456087 23-Dec-2015 15:53

I had a Huawei that was sold as a telecom phone (Now rebranded Spark) that I've used on 2 Degress and now Skinny.

I now have a Elefone Be Touch 3 on the same Skinny Sim card, the network shows as "Telecom" when on 3G and "Skinny" at the moment on 4G.

Back to your question, I can't say for sure but I expect that a telecom (Spark) locked phone will work on Skinny, because Skinny is a Spark subsidiary and uses the same Telecom (Spark) network.

xpd

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#1456088 23-Dec-2015 15:53

nakedmolerat: Telecom doesn't exist anymore.

Skinny does lock some of their phones (cheaper end).

Re-read what he asked "Will telecom locked cellphones work on skinny". May have a phone from Telecom thats locked before Skinny turned up and Telecom re-branded to Spark.......

XPD / Gavin

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1101

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#1456141 23-Dec-2015 16:38

nakedmolerat: Telecom doesn't exist anymore.

let me re-phrase then :-)

Will SPARK locked cellphones work on skinny.
If I buy a spark cellphone, will it work on Skinny ?

Just a shot in the dark , as they are the same network & more or less the same company(?)
Spark has a much better choice of ph's than Skinny, and may be some good deals on the usual boxing day sales

Cheers & a merry Festivus to all.

wellygary

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#1456150 23-Dec-2015 17:04

I suspect the answer is NO,

While Legally Skinny is a division of Spark NZ trading ltd, I think the relationship is very much as a MVMO, ( has its own numebrign allocation etc) rather than as a "sub-brand"

HotDogBreath

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#1456154 23-Dec-2015 17:22

1101:
nakedmolerat: Telecom doesn't exist anymore.

let me re-phrase then :-)

Will SPARK locked cellphones work on skinny.
If I buy a spark cellphone, will it work on Skinny ?

Just a shot in the dark , as they are the same network & more or less the same company(?)
Spark has a much better choice of ph's than Skinny, and may be some good deals on the usual boxing day sales

Cheers & a merry Festivus to all.

In black and white....

No.
Spark locked handsets are locked to Spark.

$30 to unlock them at any Spark owned store (Can't be done over the phone).

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

ajw

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#1456158 23-Dec-2015 17:28

The answer is no. A year or so ago I switched from Skinny to spark and had to unlock the handset. As I had been with skinny for over 9 months they gave me the unlock code for free. Spark and Skinny operate on separate network codes.

Unlocked handsets can be used on skinny or spark as normal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code

Yabanize

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#1456159 23-Dec-2015 17:29

They have always told people No, but there is a chance it could (Not exactly sure how the locking works)

ajw

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#1456161 23-Dec-2015 17:32

Yabanize: They have always told people No, but there is a chance it could (Not exactly sure how the locking works)

By using separate network codes. I would also think a locked 2 degrees handset would not work with a warehouse mobile SIM card even being used on the same network.

BarTender

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#1456231 23-Dec-2015 19:10

No, Skinny and Spark use different IMSI ranges on their SIM cards. So the phone is locked to the particular IMSI range that will only work on the supplied network.

haysking

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#1456362 24-Dec-2015 00:22

I've had a 3 spark branded network locked phones just cheapies that would work on skinny but my skinny v875 wouldn't work on spark without unlocking