Mobile phone sims - trying to keep same number

[Millionairerow]

I have now an iPHONE 5s (yay) - however, we changed teh phone from a blackberry to ipHONE midway through contract. T mobile/EE however said it should just be a case of putting the right SIM in the phone so that I can use the same mobile number I've always been using. Yet the damn SIM is not working and countless calls to EE/T mobile have not seen us get to the bottom of what the issue is. Any ideas? Tearing our hair out!!!!!

I would go into an EE store and see if you can get sense from them

A) in diagnosing what's wrong
and
B) fixing it.

Just on the nosy front (because I know they double lock iPhones, and it may be outside the abilities in the EE store)... is the iPhone 5S new or has it already been used (and if so, on which network) ?

I ask because from vague memory (I don't have and currently no wish for) iPhones may sometimes need to be unlocked by Apple as well as the network where it was previously used.

I am no expert - I tinker far more with Android - but before assuming EE can fix it, I had to throw in that unwanted possibility.

I do know about iPhones. If an iPhone is bought from a network it is usually locked to that network. If you buy a brand new SIM-free iPhone from any retailer other than Apple it will lock itself to the first network to the first network used. So there is a god chance that your iPhone is locked. If it is you will need to get the network to unlock it. Apple do need to unlock it but the network will handle that for you.