If you’re in the United States and you purchased an iPhone 5 on Verizon, you’re in luck. The folks at iDownloadBlog have confirmed that the Verizon model of the iPhone 5 is indeed factory unlocked. They have confirmed this by not only calling Verizon and asking, but also by cutting down and then popping an AT&T SIM card into the iPhone 5’s nano-SIM tray. After they did this, they successfully connected to AT&T’s “4G” HSPA+ network, which offers substantially lower download speeds when compared to AT&T’s LTE network. iDownloadBlog also confirmed that their Verizon iPhone was on-contract.
So, why is this such an advantage? For one, if you ever decide to leave the United States on vacation or for any other reason, you won’t be tied to Verizon’s obnoxious international data plans. If you ever decide to leave Verizon for another carrier, you can always take your iPhone with you if you don’t mind being LTE-less.
As of now we’re not totally sure if Verizon will keep their iPhone 5s unlocked or if they’ll lock them later. However, let’s hope they keep it this way for the sake of convenience.
Source: iDownloadBlog
