Jerry has a cell phone and he's traveling out of the country. He's out of his contract. Can he get it unlocked? Leo says yes, he can just go to Verizon and ask them politely. They are supposed to do it, and AT&T does this for its customers too. Verizon is under a consent decree not to lock their phones, so they should unlock it. Then he can put a local SIM card in when he gets to his destination.
Sharon has a Verizon cellphone but wants to get her old AT&T iPhone 4S added to the plan. Verizon said they can't add that phone to their network, though. Leo says back then, AT&T and Verizon phones only worked with either GSM or CDMA technology. If the phone was newer, like an iPhone 5S or iPhone 6, she could do it because they are called "world phones." She may need to unlock it. But the 4S predates the era of iPhone world phones, and it won't work.
Pete wants to root his Verizon Google Nexus 6, but every time he tries, he can't seem to make it work. Leo says that Verizon tends to make changes to Google phones to prevent them from being rooted.
Leo advises checking XDA Developers forums to get tips on how to deal with unlocking the boot loader, then rooting it and getting custom recovery on it.
Mark uses Verizon 4G Wireless service and runs through 40GB in an afternoon with video conferencing. He also ends up roaming, so he's paying for that as well as overages. Verizon told him that FIOS would be coming, but Leo says that'll never happen now because they've stopped growing that out. It all has to do with a tug of war with the FCC over net neutrality.
Richard's Verizon Wi-Fi router won't work as a wired router, only Wi-Fi. Leo says that's bizarre because he would need to connect his router to the modem. Leo advises asking Verizon if it's possible to buy his own modem. He should get a DOCSIS 3 modem. The added benefit is that he won't be paying rental fees on it.
Richard should keep going back to Verizon and make them fix it. If they can't, then he has a case to go with another provider. The hardware layer is working if there's a "link light" lit. So it may be trouble on Verizon's end.
Rick says that he hears that with Sprint, if they upgrade to the new iPhone, they won't be able to talk and surf at the same time. Leo says that he can on AT&T and Verizon, though. Verizon moved over to Voice Over LTE and Leo thought Sprint was moving that way too, but apparently they haven't. T-Mobile will also work. Any GSM network will do it, and Leo suspects that Sprint will eventually go that way.
Steve was gifted an iPhone 4 and the carrier is verizon, while his carrier is T-Mobile. Leo says Steve can't use it because the iPhone 4 is a CDMA phone while T-Mobile uses GSM. So it's essentially apples and oranges. It's just not compatible. The new iPhones though are "world phones" and can use various SIMs. Leo says that's where it's going, especially for Verizon because they were ordered by a judge to stop locking their phones to a carrier.
Catherine got lured to a new phone company to save money and now she's lost her internet service. She was promised that Verizon would maintain her Internet even though she changed services. Leo says that Verizon owns the copper wire, but since she's no longer using their service, she can't have access to the internet. She would have to use whatever DSL that the other phone company offers. Leo says it sounds like she was bamboozled by a promise they had no intention to keep, so Leo advises going back to Verizon.
Neil bought an ICON Windows phone, but he's thinking of returning it because Google isn't syncing right. Should he buy an iPhone. Leo says that the new iPhone 6 is probably the best phone experience you can get. And it supports Google very well. But Leo says you can attach your outlook account to Google through the settings by using Yahoo as the middle man. So you connect the Windows Phone to Yahoo, and then connect Yahoo to Google. You can do the same thing with LinkedIn. And they're free.Once you have that connected, then you can go to Google natively and have all your contacts.
Max had a Blackberry Curve with Verizon and it just died. He can get the iPhone 4S for .99, and is wondering if that would be a good deal. Leo says they should give him .99 for the iPhone 4S! It's fine for what Max is doing, but it's three generations behind, and will be the last model that he can install the most recent OS on. Max will be able to install iOS 8, but it will be really slow. If he doesn't care, then sure, it'll work. Leo also says that within days, he's likely to see a similar deal for iPhone 5.
