Sadly, I don't know enough about it to give you advice. Every time I switched phones or services, I had to twaddle with the settings until I could get features (commonly MMS, or SMS with media) so that they worked properly. If AT&T is actually blocking you out for refusing to use an AT&T phone, the trick would be to get the phone to pretend it's an AT&T phone, then way Firefox can pretend it's Chrome when it needs to.
But I don't know the specifics.
If you get phones from the manufacturer they're not labeled compatible with AT&T so much as that they have access to specific radio ranges and are controlled either by soft-stored codes or by a SIM card, and I'd buy the sim card from the service, and then stick it in my phone. The Sony I had for a while was compatible with both the T-Mobile and AT&T ranges, and I used a third party service that was an el-cheapo front for T-Mobile.
T-Mobile wanted me to pay extra for hot-spot use, but I got around that with software, which is like hacking the subscription seat warmers on your BMW.
Curiously, Apple phones will lock themselves (or did for a while... is it better now?) based on what service you initially connected them to, and you have to (had to, I hope) get their permission and pay fees to unlock it again.
The telecommunication companies are an oligopoly, so like a legal cartel, so they pull a lot of bullshit that we end users have to suffer. But it means I feel not a jot of guilt when I hack the hell out of it to extract services I didn't pay for, since it's all a grift anyway.
Being a mathematical nit mostly, and do not want to keep you up at night. When we talk about numbering systems in base X, it doesn't include the digit for X. Hexadecimal includes 0-9 and A-[F]. Decimal includes 0-9 so not A (the symbol for 10). Octal (base 8) includes 0-7.
So 83 can't be an octal number.
But then in the end I realized you were converting from decimal to octal, in which case, yes, it's 123. I am a total derp.
There no 8 in base 8. Just as there's no A in base 10.
They're green! They're obviously plants!
Locked phones are what led me into the rabbit hole of purchasing phones from manufacturer, since the carriers not only lock phones but hobble the OS.
It did mean understanding what was necessary for a phone to qualify for given carriers, but I can tech when I need to, and I tech for my friends when they need it.
In 2024, T Mobile and AT&T (and Verizon) have all demonstrated they do not engage in good faith commerce, and so right now they're being sniveling little shits (quote me please) because the FCC and DoC are escaping regulatory capture.
That is to say, the end users are tired of their shit. Apple and Google, too.
This tells me they are less interested in the well being of the students as they are in intercepting the trajedy and drama that become symptoms of students in dysfunctional circumstances.
Windows 11 requires a TPM chip. On some phones, a TPM exchanges a small, memorable pin for a large key with which to unlock your phone, and only allows so many guesses (20 usually) before it locks up...allegedly.
They can be unlocked with an electron microscope, but that's expensive enough that FBI is going to be resistant to do that to any but the most important devices.
However, apparently Microsoft and Intel are releasing TPMs they can access, not to block off outsiders for the users, but to keep the highest tiered access reserved for the OS controller. That being Microsoft. So your Windows 11 computer isn't yours, rather you're borrowing it from Big MS... and eventually any other state or institution that figures out how to hack it open.
It's not like Microsoft hasn't pulled this kind of stuff since the 1990s, trying to lock down control of every computer for its own profit.
Ty Warner (creator of Beanie Babies) demonstrates excellent billionaire conduct by intentionally staying off of social media, according to a bio on the You're Wrong About podcast. This isn't to say he's a jerk that shamelessly stole the ideas of other people. He did a whole bunch of that. It's just once he got his riches, he shut up and ran his company.
As Elon Musk was considering buying Twitter, a lot of tech wonks examined the situation and came to the same conclusion: to retain his company value, Musk needed to let Twitter do its thing without changing its policy and if possible without commenting from his account. It was already doing the best it could.
Musk didn't and now X / Twitter is worth very much less.
To be fair, I may have stopped getting updates anyway? I suspect what happened is typical, that some Win10 update bugged the update process and I was supposed to either roll it back or get the next one by hand and just... didn't.
It is my intention to start looking at linux distros and have one installed by Summer 25...assuming I haven't immolated in a wildfire or been sent to a detention center by then.
Clarification: The Mouse as in Disney Corporation not as in the thing you use to move your pointer.
Once again the ownership class pirates freely while disparaging the common folk for violating copyright.
It's almost if it's not a real law, rather something by which to disparage the proletariat.