"Unlocked phone" questions

[Austin F]

I need to replace my AT&T phone and am thinking of getting an "unlocked" phone from an eBay vendor. I assume that I can just insert the Sim card from my old phone and it will immediately start working on the AT&T network.

But what about other AT&T features that come on a phone that they sell? For example, holding down the "1" key on my phone connects me to my voicemail number. Is this setting on the sim card so that it would work the same on the unlocked phone?

Same thing for features like connecting to AT&T's "Media Mall". Would that be accessible from a keypress or menu?

So my main question is how different the operation would be using an unlocked vs. a AT&T specific phone.

[jiffylittle]

The voicemail is a programming issue. Unlocked phones would not have the proper phone number for voicemail. You would need to input that yourself.
From what I understand, unlocked phones do not have the proper programming and settings for things like internet access and "Media Mall". Those settings would have to be programmed into your phone before it would work.

[powershaker]

The programming issues are not difficult to fix. You can find all that information online.
The only warning I would give you, is that I wouldn't trust buying phones on ebay. From a website yes, but not ebay.
On average, I've seen more problems from phone bought on ebay than from reputable websites.

[karli d]

I sell phones on eBay, and although I partially agree with the previous post about eBay, don't rule it out.

Look at the sellers rep, feedback history (check to see if that seller has sold a lot of unlocked phones in the past, and what the feedback says about it).

As for the voice mail, and the VM #, those are programmed on the AT&T SIM card. Switching it and putting it into a new phone should carry over the VM settings.