cricket service / want to use a verizon cell?

Well, I'm not sure about the phone working, but I can tell you that a locked phone is a phone that has certain software installed that will only allow it to work with a certain company. See, Cingular, Verizon, US Cell, T-Mobile and others use the same type of service called GSM (Sprint uses CDMA). So technically, a GSM phone should work with any provider. The providers stop this by "locking" their phones.

Here's a little about it:

wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock

Now - can you use it? Depends. Was your cricket service with Verizon? If so, you should be able to activate any phone onto your service. Most will just check that the new phone is not stolen or from an account that has a debt. If you need to get a replacement phone, you have options:

1) ask your provider if they have some refurbished phones. Check one of their retail stores if not over the phone.

2) find someone from your provider that has an old phone and activate that

3) Does your provider have a "pay as you go" service. I'm not sure this will work with all, but I did pull this off with T-Mobile. I bought one of their "pay as you go" phones ($50 as opposed to $150) and plugged in my SIM card - BINGO! Granted - it wasn't a great phone, but it did get me back into service.

I hope this info helps. I would definately call your wireless provider and tell them your situation. And I hope your provider isn't Sprint. :) Let's just say I used to work for them, and I know I was trying to make their customer service better, but at the same time, I knew why it was the worst in the business.

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