will a unlocked sonim xp3 phone work for t-mobile after january 1 2022

To add to the confusion (as one of the owners of a Sprint-obtained Sonim XP3 flip phone):

-----------------the saga continues --------------------------

Today I got an email from t-mobile saying after July 1 when 3G shuts down it would not work, and to click on a link in the email to get a free OnePlus NORD N200 5G phone. On logging onto my account with/through that link I found myself in my account but with no access to any upgrade.

I called t-mobile customer service and first complained that I believed the notice that my phone would stop working after 3G shutdown was incorrect… that in fact it is 4G LTE compatible.

After quite some time she confirmed that.

Then I said, basically, well, if I can get a free upgrade to a 5G phone, let’s go ahead and do that. But I want a flip phone. Response was “if you want a flip phone upgrade/trade-in you’ll have to pay for it. So I scratched that, and said “Send me the free 5G phone.” Well, turns out even that is a shell game.. they switched that from the NORD to a Revvl 5G. I said, OK send that. Then it was “there will be  $35 charge.” Huh? When is free $35…. but I said OK, proceed, and was prepared to let them put a $35 charge or give them a credit card. Well, at this point I’ve been on hold with the rep for about 30 minutes with her saying things like “please hold while I work on this.”  She has twice sent me temporary PINs.

Seems like a complete FUBAR with their “free upgrades” … at least in my experience with this one t-mobile account… and even worse with my two legacy Sprint accounts.  Finally I just told her to forget it… She said take my old phone into a t-mobile store and do a trade in there. We’ll see. Don’t hold your breath.

By the way…. I got one of my phones activated on a t-mobile pre-pay plan that’s only $10 per month.

Unlimited text and voice, and 1GB of data.

Sprint/t-mobile offered to send free 5G capable phones to any subscriber whose phone was believed by them to be incapable of working on the t-mobile network after the end of May 2022.. when the 3G transmitters were turned off… or had Sprint  phones only CDMA capable.  They did in fact send me one free (an Alcatel GoFlip) to replace one of my two phones that they essentially killed.

I’m having a nightmare trying to get them to send the second replacement phone to me. One of the several catches I run into is to get a rep to work with me they have to send a verification text to my phone.. Of course that’s the phone that they’ve disabled.   At this point over 4 hours on phone calls. still no phone.

I’m on a $15/month prepaid plan (because it’s way cheaper than any of the post-pay plans and, since I barely use any data at all, I definitely don’t need the maximum amount of the latest number of Gs). The promotion, I’m told, was only available either to those on a post-pay plan, or to those who upgrade to a prepaid plan that was 2-4 times more expensive (maybe both, maybe just the first one, I can’t remember). I don’t think they were making it up on the spot, either; they had to consult a table that had been printed out from corporate HQ.

Glad you got that clarified.
Sadly, periods it is not that unusual to get inconsistent or in accurate information from cellular carriers customer service it can be very frustrating.
(IIRR I think I had mentioned I believed your XP3 phone would continue to work. I have the same model.)

Re "the promotion for the free replacement is only available to people paying for a much more expensive plan that I have”:

Humm.

That’s odd that you say that.

I have two other sprint phones that are in ancient plans cheaper than any plan you’ve ever heard of. In fact so low cost that if I told you you might think I’m BSing. The  point I’m making is that Sorint/t-mobile IS supplying me free phones for those two, as those accounts are using phones that will not work after the end of May

I ended up stopping in at a T-mobile store and asked about this. The supervisor was eventually called out and he determined that my Sonim XP3 would work fine, and that I got these messages because they were just automatically sent out to everyone who didn’t have some such-and-such kind of phone or something.

Additionally, the promotion for the free replacement is only available to people paying for a much more expensive plan that I have, so in my case it would have been a very expensive replacement.

Here’s what I mean by dig deeper:

# Call 611 and see if you get DIFFERENT reps. Different reps sometimes have different knowledge.

# Ask to speak to a supervisor.

# Call or walk into one or more t-mobile stores.

# Go to the website and ask the same questions to a Chat rep.

I don’t know what the “Best” tactic is.

I’ll add I suggest you SPECIFICALLY tell them other t-mobile subscribers in your situation have been offered two different models or flip phones: Alcatel Go Flip AND a compatible newer Sonim XP3 and you want them to send you one.

Al

Thanks again, that’s aligned with my thinking too.

When you say “persist/dig-deeper” are you thinking verbally, after calling 611? In person, at a T-mobile store? Is there some way to do this “digging” just through the website? In your experience, what’s the best tactic?

If you persist/dig-deeper I believe you will find that you can get a free compatible flip phone from them: I’m virtually certain they’d give you an alcatel go flip 4. It’s not the greatest flip phone out there but works. They also (and I know you’ll find this odd) a Sonim XP3. And they offered me a $200 credit to buy from them any phone they sell. (The problem with that is as far as I could tell sell only two true flip phones… one being the alcatel go flip 4.

  But I’d say don’t wait… get a free garrenteed compatible phone from them BEFORE yours might become useless. For one thing they may take weeks to get the new phone to you. It’ll cost you nothing… and if you decide not to use it you canstick it in a drawer or sell it. They can’t force you to activate it.

Thanks Al. They have offered me a new phone for $0 but it’s a touchscreen smartphone that I don’t want. I suppose if the XP3 does actually stop working I could get the free phone anyway and just use it as a stopgap until I find a new flip phone...