Perhaps you have a drawer full of good, deactivated phones you thought had no use. Or maybe you have become overwhelmed with phone bills and want to deactivate your phone but don’t know what that entails. You don’t have to bother yourself any further. Here is an article that explains the use of a deactivated phone and if you can use WiFi on your deactivated phone.
Can WiFi Be Used on a Deactivated Phone?
Simply, yes, you can! If your new or old phone is deactivated or has no sim, you can still use the WiFi feature. Since WiFi interacts with the phone rather than your phone’s cellular network. Hence, if any phone, deactivated or not, has WiFi compatibility, it can still go online.
What Does It Mean When a Phone Is Deactivated?
In the US, each phone has an assigned sim card that has been activated for a phone. You can’t manually remove, unlink, and then use the sim for another device.
Hence, perhaps you got a new phone; you must go to your sim’s service provider to get a new sim card. Immediately you are issued a new sim card; the old one becomes deactivated. It often comes with a “sim isn’t provisioned” error display. You can’t call, message, or use mobile data on such a phone. A phone with a deactivated sim card is a deactivated phone.
Why You Might Want to Use WiFi on a Deactivated Phone?
Although a deactivated phone might not look like much, you can still do many things with it. Even though a deactivated phone can’t call, message, or use mobile data, you can recover most of its functionalities with a good WiFi connection.
WiFi connection is almost ubiquitous. So even with a cellular network out of the picture, you can access your social media apps, emails and browse the internet. Nonetheless, there is a hitch. You can’t start a new social media account on a deactivated phone since it requires a valid phone number. However, if you already have a working social media account on your now deactivated phone, you can go on it as if nothing happened.
How You Can Use WiFi on a Deactivated Phone?
How you use WiFi on a deactivated phone is no different from how you would use it on the phone with a working sim card.
To use WiFi on your deactivated phone, turn on your WiFi connection and scan available networks.
Perhaps you are using the deactivated phone as a spare phone; you can use your main phone’s hotspot to provide a WiFi connection. If that’s not the case, you can always connect to public WiFi.
Can a Deactivated Phone Text and Call?
Yes! However, it is not via the conventional way. You can call by using applications that work with WiFi and VoIP services.
Calling via WiFi is not limited to mobile networks. There are several applications where you can call without a mobile network. You can call using WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, Telegram, Viber, and others. You can also text using any of the applications mentioned above.
What a Deactivated Phone Can And Can’t Do?
A deactivated phone can do almost everything a normal phone can do when it has access to a stable, strong WiFi connection. You can still play songs, read books, take notes, play games—and if you have access to a social network—chat and call with your deactivated phone.
Although this feels so surreal, it has a downside. Deactivated phones are reliant on WiFi connection for internet access. If you are in a place without strong WiFi connection, your pboe becomes limited. Hence, you can’t use it on the move unless you have a hotspot device. You can’t make emergency calls too. Its WiFi dependence is both its blessing and curse.
Conclusion
Smartphones are more than dial things in this age. Perhaps you have an active phone and a deactivated phone; you can still use your deactivated phone with WiFi. However, if you don’t have access to constant WiFi communication, you can use your deactivated phone for other things. While your active phone does everything related to the internet, you can use your deactivated phone as an event planner, calendar, note, music player, and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is it Possible to Reactivate a Deactivated Phone?
Yes, it is. You can reactivate your phone. If the Sim carrier deactivated it, you could contact them to resolve the issue. Your phone can also have been deactivated because of a fault in payment, or your tenure with the carrier has ended. You can contact them by visiting their local office to reactivate your phone.
However, if you deactivate your phone, you must sign up for a new plan. And note that your old number might not be available again too.
- Why Is My Sim Deactivated?
Your sim card is deactivated on the following grounds:
- Your sim card was involved in abuse or fraud.
- You port out (transfer your number to another provider.)
- The sim card isn’t active—if you don’t use it frequently.
