Okay, I need some guidance from you kind souls out there. Here's my situation: I live in NYC and have had MetroPCS for a few years. I started going to college in Cortland (four hours upstate) August of 2012. I had the Samsung Freeform II, I believe. Kept my phone, kept my service. Everything was fine. I decided I wanted a nicer phone, so I bought an LG Motion a little less than a year ago. These past few months, I started receiving texts about off-net service usage and was threatened with my service being cut off. I went to a Metro store and they told me that the CDMA technology in the phone was to blame and that if I bought a GSM compatible device, I'd have no problems and would be able to use my phone upstate. I know this has something to do with the T-Mobile merge, but I'm no cellphone aficionado. So, I looked around and found the LG Optimus F3 in Best Buy. I bought it and love it so far. It's great. Bigger, sleeker, and better battery life than the Motion by FAR. I returned to my campus two days ago and had service the first day. I noticed it said AT&T on my lock screen instead of MetroPCS and the 4GLTE icon had disappeared. I still could make and receive calls and text messages. After that day, though, I've had absolutely no service and can't connect to the available networks (AT&T & T-Mobile), regardless if they're CDMA or GSM. I've switched up my network settings and still no luck. I'll get a message like "Your SIM card does not allow connection to this network" or "try again later". I can't even use WiFi calling because my phone says I need to update my SIM card. I feel silly for buying this new phone and thinking my problems would be solved. I'm out $150, thankfully I didn't spend anymore than that. If someone could explain this all to me and possible steps to get my service back, I'd really appreciate it. I can't exactly afford an expensive plan through a major carrier but if that's my only option, I'll have to cave. Also, with my luck, the address I'll be living at next semester (moving off campus, YAY!) is not covered under Virgin Mobile so that's not an option. I hope I've provided enough info/context and haven't blabbed like a lunatic. Thanks in advance