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Cell phones are probably the electronic devices with the highest sales volumes, all over the world. Mobile telephony is also one of the most competitive of all market sectors. There is cut throat competition among the cheap cell phones service providers for their market share and they keep coming up with many new strategies to entice and retain their customer base. One such ploy implemented by many cell phone carriers like AT&T is locking of cell phones to their service exclusively. The aim of this article is to explain what is unlocked cell phone or locked phones.

What is an Unlocked Cell Phone Exactly?

To know what does unlocked cell phones mean, you need to know a bit about GSM phones and how they work. All GSM phones work with SIM (subscriber identity modules) installed in them, which are specific to every carrier network. To be able to use the cheap cell phones service of any carrier, the SIM card needs to be inserted into the cell phone, without which it cannot work. The SIM provides the unlocked cell phones with a unique cell phone number and grants access to the carrier's cell phone network.

A locked cell phone is a phone that is programmed to be tethered to a single cell phone service provider. That means, the phone doesn't recognize any other cell phone service provider, other than the one its locked to. It only works with the SIM card of the carrier to which it's programmed to work with. An unlocked cell phone is one which has been released from this restriction of being tethered to one network.

Many carriers like AT&T offer GSM phones with discounted plans which are locked to function exclusively with that service. The phone can be unlocked by the carrier on request if you have the full ownership of the phone. There are private companies which can unlocked phones for you, in return of a fixed fee.