Sim card / phone compatibility

Putting a sim card into an existing mobile phone is a cheap and great way of keeping your existing handset "alive". Our exclusive range of sim cards come direct from the Utility Warehouse, a British PLC who offer a range of excellent deals.

There are two checks you need to do to ensure these sim cards will work in your phone.

1) Is your phone dual band?

The sim cards we sell use the GSM1800 digital network, so your phone must be compatible with this technology. Most phones produced since around 1998 are, but it is still worth checking.

If your phone was on Orange, T-Mobile or Virgin, then it is definitely compatible.

The other way to find out is to check the specification of the phone (see the instruction manual) and see if it is GSM1800 compatible. Some of the older O2 and Vodafone phones are not compatible as they only use the single band GSM900 service.

2) Is your phone locked?

A lot of mobile phones are sold "locked" by the network operator to their own network. Thus, if you have a phone that was originally supplied on Orange, you may only be able to use Orange sim cards in it, unless you get the phone unlocked. The only way of telling if a phone is locked is to try a sim card from another network in it and if you get a service, then your phone is unlocked.

For example, if you have a friend who uses T-Mobile and your phone was on Orange, try their sim card in your phone. If you get a signal, then you will be able to use our sim cards too.

Unlocking can be a relatively cheap and easy process with more modern handsets - see our unlocking page for more details.