With the holidays approaching, I was looking for ways to cut or eliminate bills so I could spend more money on gifts for my family. The biggest bill after rent and the car payment is the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on Verizon. It’s averaged around $175 or more per month for mine and my daughter’s phones. My iPad is on AT&T and I spend $30/month for 3 GB of data per month.

Then I thought, what if I use the SIM card from the iPad in the Verizon Samsung Note 4. I suspended Verizon service*, then I looked up the Access Point Name (APN) Settings and entered them into my phone. My phone isn’t jailbroken and since I use a Google Voice phone number, I could get text messages through Google Hangout and make phone calls using the Hangouts Dialer. If you expect to use your phone number, this solution may not work for you. A SIM card from a different carrier will have a different phone number.

Even if you’re not super tech-savvy, you should be able to test this out by following the instructions below. This setup works because I’ve been using Google Voice for years. The Google Voice integration with Google Hangouts and the addition of MMS/group messaging made this an attractive solution since I wouldn’t need to change the way I communicate. My phone battery died pretty quickly on Verizon, so I would take the SIM card out of the phone and put it in my tablet so I can stay connected while my phone charged.

How to Get a Verizon Phone Working with an AT&T Data SIM Card (no jailbreak required)

Before you get started, take the back cover off your phone and remove the Verizon SIM, then replace it with the AT&T SIM card. Make sure you don’t lose the Verizon SIM card, put this in a safe place, if you plan to use it again. I usually put the Verizon SIM in between the battery and the back cover so it’s always there if I need it.

1. Go to Settings → Mobile Networks  → Network mode
2. Select GLOBAL
   1. Once you click on GLOBAL, you will be brought back to the Mobile Networks screen
3. Go to Access Point Names (APN)
4. Click on + to add a new APN
   • Name: ATT Broadband (use this setting if you are using a SIM card for a tablet)
   • APN: broadband
   • Proxy: not set
   • Port: not set
   • Username: not set
   • Password: not set
   • Server: not set
   • MMSC: not set
   • Multimedia message proxy:  not set
   • Multimedia message port:  80
   • MCC: 310
   • MNC:  410
   • Authentication type:  Not set
   • APN Type: default, sup, mms, hip, fota
   • APN protocol:  IPv4
   • APN roaming protocol:  IPv4
   • Bearer: Unspecified
   • Mobile virtual network operator type:  None
5. Click on the 3 dots in the upper right hand, Select Save
6. Turn off your phone, then turn it back on
7. To test your phone, turn off WiFi, then use the browser to go to a web page.
8. Launch Hangouts Dialer and make a phone call
9. Launch Google Hangouts to send a text message

This solution allows you use your data connection to make phone calls and text messages. If you use Skype, you can use Skype to dial phone numbers and you can go online to set your mobile number as the caller ID for when you make phone calls from Skype.

*Don’t suspend your cell phone service until you are sure you can make this work. My backup plan was to use my tablet to stay connected, that is why I suspended service until I could pay off the device charges.

Resources:

Manually Set APN Settings for US Network Providers
AT&T APN Settings