Pixel 3 hit the markets earlier this month and the smartphone is selling really well. Pixel 3 represents Google’s vision of a “pure Android flagship” and this is why customers are lining up to get one. However, people who decide to visit Verizon will have a big surprise, the new Google smartphone is SIM locked.
Verizon agreed with the FCC to stop locking its LTE smartphones back in 2018 in exchange for 700MHz Upper Block C spectrum, but now Verizon has decided that it wants to follow its own rules and not the ones imposed by the FCC.
Verizon SIM Locks Pixel 3
It’s been only a couple of weeks since Pixel 3 launched and Android fans who haven’t pre-ordered the device and live in the US can only get it from Verizon and Best Buy. However, some Android fans figured that they can purchase Pixel 3 at the full retail price from BestBuy but couldn’t use them with SIMs from other carries because the smartphone presented them with the following error “SIM card isn’t supported”.
This might become a big problem for Android fans in the future because if they decide to purchase a new Pixel 3 from online retailers such as Amazon, they have no way of knowing if the smartphone is SIM locked or not.
How to Unlock Pixel 3
Some tech experts are saying that people who purchased a locked Pixel 3 from Best Buy can still unlock it by inserting a Verizon SIM for a couple of hours and the smartphone will be automatically unlocked.
On the other hand, this unique way of unlocking the smartphone has yet to be verified by Verizon. We should also mention that Verizon has failed to update its website to show the new policy which says that some Pixel 3 units will be SIM locked.
