IPHONE 4S in Germany
 

My daughter will be spending August in Germany attending a language course at one of the universities. We have an IPHONE4S (Verizon) that we are no longer using. A friend suggested we have it unlocked and get a SIM card for her in Germany with a prepaid plan. Can anyone help us on the details?
Thanks

You have a lot of options. Most of our students get a cheap plan powered by O2, but if you daughter will only be away a short time and you don't want a plan, prepaid providers like Lebara are very cheap for overseas phone calls if your daughter wants to call home. These SIMs are widespread and you can get them from kiosks. Other cheap SIMs are available from supermarkets (AldiTalk, Lidl, Tchibo from Tchibo shops), but Lebara has a slight edge on them because it has English-speaking operators for when she is setting up the account. Most providers allow you to set up online nowadays anyway so this point may be redundant. The big providers like Vodafone ('CallYa' SIM card), T-Mobile and e+ are a little more expensive for calls overseas but fine if most of the calls will be within Germany.

Lavandula

Call Verizon and ask them - if this phone was once on your account (assuming you are still a Verizon customer?) they should have a record of it - and may help you unlock it.

Once you get the phone unlocked, the SIM part in Germany is pretty easy. She can just buy a local SIM card when she gets there.

Here's some info about German mobile providers that sell prepaid SIM cards:

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Germany

She can also install the Google Hangouts app to make free phone calls to the US, even to landlines, on WiFi or, once she gets a SIM card that has data, from anywhere with mobile service.

Verizon iPhone 4s should already be unlocked. This is a 2 year old news: http://www.prepaidphonenews.com/2015...-unlocked.html.

How you actually swap out Verizon SIM with German SIM is described at the Verizon web site: https://www.verizonwireless.com/supp...ge-base-49046/

That's great info about the iPhone 4s unlock, Greg. But doesn't it depend on when the iPhone was last used on Verizon? It seems they unlocked those phones a few years ago. If the phone was in use in the last year or two, it's probably unlocked. If not - not sure if Verizon would have been able to unlock it automatically. In that case, it wouldn't hurt to call them and ask.