yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Alright guys, time out.

Every Nexus 6 sold in the US, no matter where it's purchased from, will technically work on all 5 carriers. The issue is, the CDMA carriers won't have IMEI numbers white listed for stock sold from other carriers. Based on the IMEI number of your phone, I can tell what color it is, how much storage it has, and where it was sold.

You can activate any Nexus 6 purchased anywhere on AT&T or T-Mobile because they're GSM and don't care where it's from.

You cannot buy a device from anywhere and activate it on Verizon, Sprint, or US Cellular, though. You can lie and tell then you bought it from Play but it won't matter. If you purchased your phone anywhere other than Play or the CDMA carrier you're trying to activate with, they won't have your phone's IMEI in their database, thus no activation.

As for devices purchased from Motorola, I'm not going to speculate because I have no history to go on, but I would imagine that those would be OK as well.

T-Mobile and AT&T will take any Nexus 6 sold anywhere.

Verizon will take a Nexus 6 sold from Play or Verizon.

Sprint will take a Nexus 6 sold from Play or Sprint.

US Cellular will take a Nexus 6 sold from Play or US Cellular.

It doesn't matter that your Nexus 6 that you bought at T-Mobile works fine on al the CDMA carriers (and it will). The CDMA carriers will not activate it purely because the phone won't have a whitelisted IMEI number due to the fact that it wasn't purchased from that carrier or Play. It's no more or less complicated than that.
[Nexus 6  General] munkle:
That sounds logical, except its not how the cdma carriers work. The iphone 4s (and now the 6 and 6 plus in the US, though sprint has a different model, but verizon uses the same model as att/tmobile) was the same model for cdma and gsm, but it wouldn't work on cdma networks unless originally purchased from a cdma network. Basically they whitelisted imei numbers to only activate iphones that were orignally purchased on cdma networks even though the model was capable of both gsm/cdma.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
I think what a lot of people don't understand is that you can tell by a phones IMEI number where it was purchased, it's color, the storage, and model number. So you're exactly right. The CDMA carriers only whitelist the devices that they sell, and they enforce that via the IMEI number.
[Nexus 6  General] efrant:
The only time I have ever heard of Verizon allowing a non-Verizon or non-Play Store sold device on their network is by someone having an insider connection and white-listing it. I think it's pretty safe to say that if you buy a device from T-mobile, it will not work on Verizon, unless Verizon changes the policy that is has had in place for years.

An N6 bought from T-Mobile will work on AT&T and vice-versa. The OP was specifically referring to CDMA carriers.

EDIT: Ninja'd by oldblue910
[Nexus 6  General] icon123:
When's the last time the play store sold a device that was compatible with Verizon? As of right now, I'm not sure even play store N6 will be activated by Verizon.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
The 2013 Nexus 7 LTE.
[Nexus 6  General] icon123:
I'm sorry, I meant phone. Something that had CDMA in it. Besides, if I do recall, there were problems getting the n7 activated on Verizon.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
There were, because Verizon hadn't added the IMEI numbers to their database. The tablet launched in September and Verizon didn't add the IMEI numbers until February. And to further the point, they only added IMEIs for devices sold from Play and Verizon. If you bought an N7 LTE from T-Mobile, Verizon wouldn't activate it because they didn't recognize the IMEI. Same problem you had with trying to activate a T-Mobile-purchased Nexus 5 on Sprint.

Now, with the Nexus 7 LTE, you could get around it by using the IMEI number of an approved device to get past the "is this certified" check, but that only worked because the tablet didn't have CDMA in it. That won't work on a phone due to the fact that it needs access to the CDMA network. Verizon's LTE network will take any device because legally it has to per FCC rules. Those rules do not apply to the existing CDMA network, though. So, if you went online to Verizon and activated new service for an N6 using an IMEI of a different device, they'd send you a SIM card, but as soon as you put it in the N6, it wouldn't activate because CDMA.
[Nexus 6  General] wtherrell:
I read the OP. No such implication in it at all.
[Nexus 6  General] icon123:
That's my point. I think people need to quit saying that you can buy it from the play store and activate it on Verizon. Until, there's specific proof, that it can be done, I would assume that it can't be done. Don't get me wrong, I want a Nexus device on Verizon about as bad as anyone. I just don't want to get my hopes up because Verizon has a way of destroying them. My job and their network is the only reason I have been with them so long (over 15 years). But if they F*** this one up, I will switch to AT&T in a 2nd and unfortunately loose my unlimited data. I will make sure that every MerFer at Verizon knows why I left.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Fair enough, but this is kinda outside the scope of the thread. The entire point of this thread is to inform people that if you buy a Nexus 6 and expect to ever be able to activate it on Verizon, Sprint, or US Cellular, you need to buy it from Google Play, the carrier you want to use, or possibly Motorola. The point of this was more CDMA carriers in general, not Verizon specifically. Further, for anyone who switches carriers incessantly and expects to be able to activate their Nexus 6 on any of the 5 carriers at a drop of a hat, you have to buy it from Play or possibly Motorola. That's the only way to ensure that you'll be able to activate your phone on any of the 3 CDMA carriers assuming they support it at all.
[Nexus 6  General] Lucke:
and how is Verizon going to have all the IMEI's from the phones that Google sells on the Play Store? i'm a little skeptical because i highly doubt that Google will provide 100% of IMEI's of the phones they sell to Verizon/Sprint.
[Nexus 6  General] Schoat333:
Droid life just confirmed that the Review unit they received works on Verizon 100%.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Probably because it's got a Google Play IMEI number
[Nexus 6  General] f1ip:
Of course it works.

It wasn't purchased from T-Mobile or AT&T.

That's the premise of this thread. Don't buy a device from TMO or AT&T if you plan on using the phone on VZW, Sprint or US Cellular to avoid any activation headaches.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
Actually many of the review units came with a TMobile insert.....enough to make me think they could all be coming from TMobile stock.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
They still came from Google, meaning they're equivalent to devices purchased from Play and have IMEI numbers to match.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
So your theory is all Google play models come with only a TMobile insert? They aren't coming with an insert from all the carriers from what I've seen.... Only TMobile.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
I wonder if Nexus 6 devices purchased from the CDMA carriers will include SIM ejector tools in the box. The Nexus 5s that you bought from Sprint didn't.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
What I know is that no carrier is sending out review units. At Android Police, our review unit came from Google and everyone else I know that got one had them come from Google as well. Why it came with a T-Mobile insert, who knows, but it's very possible that T-Mobile paid for that. Some Nexus 4s that came from Play also had T-Mobile SIMs included in the box as a promotional thing.
[Nexus 6  General] NardVa:
How much effort would it be for a CDMA carrier to load all the Nexus 6 IEMI numbers into their database? Motorola/Google could provide the numbers to all the CDMA carriers hence avoiding activation troubles.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
I don't know how hard that would be. Ultimately they could simply send a report of every IMEI number sold through the play store to all the carriers. That wouldn't be hard. But what happens if someone purchases a N6 from say ATT and pays it off in full and then decides to go to VZW? They can't legally make his phone a brick and VZW isn't going to turn him away either.

Back in the days of the GS3 there was a way to change your IMEI to get around stuff like this.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Changing your IMEI number is very illegal. Just saying.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
I didn't go there on purpose....... . I just said it had been done by people.
[Nexus 6  General] artpena2323:
iPad

I have a unlocked ATT iPad Air on Verizon. When my buddy at the verizon store pulls it up. It says NON VZW device. But it works. I wonder if the Nexus 6 will be the same way. And droid life posted a video of them using a nexus 6 on Verizon. Hmmm?
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Did you use another device's IMEI number to get it activated? Also, will it fall back to CDMA 3G if there's no LTE? I'm guessing not. Remember, Verizon's LTE network isn't locked. Only their CDMA network. Tablets don't need CDMA to work on VZW. Phones do. When it comes to tablets, it's very easy to get around Verizon's IMEI check by using the IMEI of an approved device because LTE is unlocked. Once you put the SIM card in your iPad, the network doesn't care what your device's IMEI is as long as you're not trying to use CDMA.

We talked about Droid Life's phone before. It came from Google and therefore it has a Google Play IMEI which Verizon has presumably whitelisted.
[Nexus 6  General] artpena2323:
Ipad

Yeah. True. Doesn't need CDMA on the IPad. And the downfall is I had a iPhone on that line so I popped in the SIM. It works but I'm paying $40 still for the line. Lol.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
That explains why your iPad works. You had an already activated SIM card from your iPhone. If you went into a VZW store and tried to get a new line for that iPad, they wouldn't let you because they wouldn't have that IMEI in their database.
[Nexus 6  General] TMYINC:
All you need is an activated Sim from your Carrier that will fit the Nexus 6. BYOD device imei's do not need to be entered into the carriers system, only the ICCID of the Sim card to fit the device would been changed if you would need to swap Sim card sizes. Only if you are upgrading through that carrier do the imei's need entered. So whitelisting imei's is basically irrelevant.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Only for LTE. The Nexus 6 also needs access to CDMA which is still very much whitelisted. Further, Verizon and Sprint will NOT give you a SIM card without first checking the device's IMEI number against their database of approved devices, even if you're doing BYOD.
[Nexus 6  General] TMYINC:
But if your imei isn't in their system how can they black list your CDMA connection?
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
As I understand the technology, if the IMEI is not in the system, CDMA won't allow your device to handshake with the network. CDMA carriers use a whitelist, not a blacklist. Also, a SIM card is irrelevant for CDMA. No US CDMA carrier uses SIM cards for authenticating with CDMA. The SIMs are only necessary for LTE.
[Nexus 6  General] TMYINC:
But I'm saying if you had a previous CDMA imei in the system and just put your Sim into the nexus 6 or swapped iccid if you need a different size Sim how would the system know the difference? And I know for sure that VZW does not always check your imei lol.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Because every time your phone handshakes with CDMA, the ESN/IMEI is sent and either approved or denied based on what's sent. Remember, CDMA doesn't give a rat's @$$ about SIM cards. Those only exist for LTE purposes. CDMA is based purely on a device's ESN or IMEI. Back in the pre-LTE days, no US CDMA carrier used SIM cards because they weren't needed and still aren't for CDMA.

If you took a previously activated SIM and put it into an N6 that didn't have a whitelisted IMEI, it would work fine on LTE but it couldn't make or receive calls or fall back to 3G data. The CDMA network would reject it due to an unrecognized IMEI.
[Nexus 6  General] TMYINC:
I was unaware that they were allowed to pull your imei since the allowing of carrier unlocking phones. Might have to check into that. I'm not trying to disprove you. Just trying to pull all the facts in for myself. I'm going to do some checking on this on Monday.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
I'll be interested to know what you find.
[Nexus 6  General] TMYINC:
I will keep you posted. And again I apologize if I came off condescending. What I do gives me access to some good info. Short story, they were not supposed to to this anymore due to the competitive nature of cell providers. I.E.....I have T-Mobile, bought a Nexus 6, decided I don't like T-Moblie, pay etf's and take my device to VZW. One of the reasons some devices have the hardware to run both gsm and CDMA. Other reason of course is to make one device for all carriers instead of gsm and CDMA devices being manufactured separately saving time and cost.
[Nexus 6  General] robber:
Sprint has added non sprint/play imeis to their database in the case of the n5. We should not be generalizing based on "cdma" what carriers will and will not do.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
As of when? It's a well known fact that you still cannot take a Nexus 5 that was originally purchased from T-Mobile and activate it on Sprint. You also can't take a Nexus 7 LTE that was purchased from T-Mobile and activate it on Verizon.
[Nexus 6  General] Jonnyredcorn:
Can people who bought the nexus 5 from T-Mobile use it on AT&T? There may also be some slight differences in software if the Verizon model will need an update for volte (or was that voice and data at the same time, or both lol)
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Yes because AT&T is a GSM carrier and doesn't whitelist phones. As long as the phone supports AT&T's bands, they'll give you a SIM card for it no matter where it was originally purchased.
[Nexus 6  General] robber:
Your correct, sorry. After looking back into it I was thinking of the 32gb play variants that sprint had to manually add imeis for but those are not t-mobile.
[Nexus 6  General] dualityim:
I have a question related to this. Let's say you bought a Nexus 6 from the Play Store, and thus has one with an IMEI that is whitelisted by Verizon. How do you then go ahead and activate it with Verizon's CDMA network? Do you have to use Verizon's web account management tool and enter that IMEI? Or can this activation be done on the phone? It seems like during Droid-Life's testing, they were able to activate CDMA just by using the phone: http://www.droid-life.com/2014/10/31/nexus-6-working-on-verizon-out-of-the-box/

But how is this possible? If the CDMA network completely ignores the SIM, then how does it know which phone line to tie the IMEI to?
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
You can walk into a Verizon store and do it, do it on the Web, or just put an already activated SIM in it. If you already have a phone on Verizon, you can use the Web based management tool once you swap SIMs but I don't think it's a requirement. Even though the CDMA network doesn't care about SIM cards, it may be able to use the SIM to look up your subscriber ID and associate the device with your account. It still won't let the phone on the network without a white listed IMEI though.

I may be full of crap. I haven't used Verizon since the Galaxy Nexus. Well have to do some actual testing once people start getting devices.
[Nexus 6  General] dualityim:
Ah, interesting. CDMA is such a strange beast. It doesn't use the SIM card, but can use it to activate new IMEIs.
[Nexus 6  General] wtherrell:
Yes. (Not the full of crap part)
[Nexus 6  General] dualityim:
It just occurred to me that Verizon SIM cards are also running the CSIM application for authenticating to the CDMA network and that may be the reason why devices purchased from the Play Store work out of the box with Verizon's CDMA network when you insert a Verizon SIM.
[Nexus 6  General] obsanity:
Actually, as long as you have an existing sim from Verizon that works in another phone you can swap phones just like a GSM standard. In fact, the CDMA provisions a new phone without it being in a database. It has been confirmed by various journalists where they used a Verizon sim in their Nexus 6 review unit. Both calls and LTE worked fine.

Verizon converted their system to provision CDMA on sim insert long time ago. The only way it will not provision is if the imei is blacklisted. This must work that way because LTE is a GSM standard and those are the rules.

Now if you go into a Verizon store and ask these boneheads to do it for you they'll tell you that you can't because they don't have the device in the system. Which is true. They activate devices through the system and the system just won't do it. It will not allow an unknown device on the network. However, all you need is a known device to be activated and then simply switch sims.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
That could very well be. Unfortunately that wouldn't help someone who needed to get a new SIM card. :/
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
That's the same workaround we used to activate N7 LTEs on Verizon before the IMEIs were whitelisted.
[Nexus 6  General] obsanity:
Right, the workaround worked because the unknown device wasn't blacklisted and Verizon had to allow it on the network as long as the device sent the correct handshake data.

If i remember correctly whitelist exists only on Verizon's system but not on the network.

On the other hand, that doesn't stop them from blacklisting all known imei numbers of N6 phones sold by other carriers. However, the blacklist is now becoming a globally shared database because of theft. It is supposed to be used only for stolen or reported lost phones. The FCC here in US is also about to pass regulation on fully paid phones which will force the original carrier to unlock the device, if it was locked, and allow the user to take it elsewhere. Again, we are talking about GSM/LTE phones. I'm not sure about Sprint's network but I think they are still in the stone age.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Sprint uses SIM cards obviously but all devices have them preinstalled and stores generally don't have replacement SIM cards. Hell, Nexus 5s sold at Sprint didn't even include a SIM ejection tool in the box.

As far as Sprint is concerned, a SIM card is just an internal part of the device and not something that's user replaceable.

When the Nexus 5 first launched, Sprint sent SIM cards to corporate stores to be used in case someone walked in off the street with a device they purchased from Google Play, but good luck finding one now. If you want a Sprint SIM card, the easiest way to get one is to call customer service and order one from them.

That said, now I'm going to try to take the active Sprint SIM out of my Galaxy Note 4, put it into a Nexus 6, and see what happens.
[Nexus 6  General] obsanity:
As far as I know it won't work. Verizon uses the 700 MHz which was bought from the government under some conditions. One of them was exactly what we've been talking about. They are not allowed to prevent eligible phones from working on their network. Sprint on the other side did not purchase spectrum on that auction and does not have these restrictions so they may never get there. But if they stay with LTE and drop CDMA at some point in the future they'll have no choice. LTE just works that way.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
You can just call them and have them send you a new sim card..... I've had to do it before when they thought something was wrong with mine.
[Nexus 6  General] busta6975:
Would I be able to use Sprint's nexus 6 on Verizon? I'm just going to pop in my sim card
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
If you have an already activated SIM, you might be able to. If you take it into a Verizon store and try to activate it in a new line, that's not happening.
[Nexus 6  General] obsanity:
We don't know that they won't activate it in stores. It is the same exact phone so unless Verizon specifically adds only their sold imei numbers to the system whitelist they might just not know which carrier you bought it from and activate it for you.

We'll have to wait until Verizon starts selling the phone and have someone actually walk in to the store and ask them to activate one bought from T-Mobile, Sprint or AT&T.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
There is every reason to believe that they'll only white last IMEIs for devices sold through Play or Verizon. That's what every CDMA carrier in history has done (including Verizon). Not even Apple can get around that. So unless Google pulls off a miracle (unlikely), it'll be the exact same problem with the N6, thus the entire point of this thread.
[Nexus 6  General] atuarre:
I think people just need to either purchase the device from the Google Play Store or the carrier they plan to activate it on. If you, for example run out and purchase a device from T-Mobile or "T", you need to prepare yourself for the actuality that the CDMA carriers will likely not activate the device. Most of all, you don't need me or anyone else to tell you that of the 3 carriers Verizon is the one that mostly like will not activate your device. They simply don't give a damn.

Unless Google specifically said you can take said device from one carrier and use it on another then I would not take that as gospel that you can just swap carriers at will. You couldn't take an iPad air that you purchased from Verizon and activate it on Sprint or vice versa. My understanding is that the device had all the carrier bands but the CDMA carriers would not activate devices that were not purchased for that specific carrier.

Anyway, just my two cents.
[Nexus 6  General] obsanity:
There is something very different about the Nexus 6 than any other device released so for including the iPhone. And that is, we potentially have only one device for all carriers. There has been no other versions passing through the FCC. Even the iPhone has two versions CDMA and GSM. The hardware difference alone makes the phone incompatible.

I don't remember a case where one phone version was made to cover all US carriers.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
The Nexus 5 did. It only lacked Verizon's LTE band.
[Nexus 6  General] obsanity:
So in other words it didn't.
[Nexus 6  General] norwoodesteel:
t-mobile site doesn't show any cdma bands
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Regardless, it'll have them. It didn't show them on the Nexus 5 either, but they were there. There's only one US SKU for the Nexus 6. All the devices are the same no matter where you buy it.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
Unless they ordered them with those bands disabled?
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
Then there would be a second SKU and a second model that would have gone through the FCC.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
No. They ran the device tests on the full capability of the device. That doesn't mean they have to have all features enabled..... It's just means all of the features the device is capable of passed the FCC testing. Nothing prevents the carriers from disabling features, FCC approved or no.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
There has never been a case where a carrier has done that on a Nexus, and I can't see them starting now, but who knows. I guess we'll find out.
[Nexus 6  General] neyenlives:
I hope you're right. I'm on Verizon and expecting the worst and hoping for the best. Worst case I keep my perfectly good Note 3 till something better comes in 2015.
[Nexus 6  General] oldblue910:
In the name of science, I pre-ordered a Nexus 6 from AT&T and it'll be here late next week. Once it gets here, the first thing I plan to do is take the Sprint SIM card out of my iPhone 6 Plus, put it in the Nexus 6 and see what happens. If that works, I'll actually take it to a Sprint store and try to get them to activate it on a new line. I don't expect they will. I'll try the new line activation on Verizon and US Cellular as well and see what happens.

I suspect that having an already-activated SIM card will work fine, but I don't expect any of the CDMA carriers to be able to give me a new SIM card due to the IMEI number. Will report my findings back.