Is changing IMEI advisable?

Technical Support for Routers 4G LTE, 5G NR, USB modems
1

I have the GL-X3000 spitz and I have a TMO business account set up. I simply asked for a new voice SIM and they happily handed me a SIM card and told me to just insert it into my phone and it would work. I took the SIM card and inserted it into the GL-X3000 and changed the TTY to 65 and the device has been working great.

When I log on to my TMO account, TMO is seeing the IMEI number and has it listed as a BYOD-ROUTER. They have not said anything to me stating that they don’t want me using the SIM in this way but I’m wondering if it would be best to change my IMEI number to that of a phone so they don’t ban my account or something. I’m hearing rumors of TMO cracking down on devices like this and would changing my IMEI number in the device to that of an iPhone be beneficial or would they still be able to tell that it is a BYOD-ROUTER?

2

Depends on your needs and laws. It's mostly forbidden by law and/or contract.
So you can decide by yourself.

3

@admon Please re-read my post. I inadvertently hit send before I was done typing. I’m sure your answer is the same though.

4

With your edit, you will likely need to change your IMEI to match TMO hardware.

5

@packetmonkey What TMO hardware are you talking about? I don't have any TMO hardware. Never bought their home internet device. So, I'm thinking that I should change IMEI to some other phone hardware instead. Thought my edit was clear that they gave me a SIM and I inserted it into the X3000.

6

You may or may not get flagged for an issue. They obviously recognize the IMEI as a cellular router. I don't know about TMO, but AT&T can ban your account if you use a phone SIM in a router and they find out as it is explicitly against their terms of service. Your best bet would be to make your router look as much like a TMO phone as possible.

NOTE: if you do change your IMEI, record the original somewhere in case you decide to switch it back. Otherwise, you will be factory resetting the modem itself (which may or may not be a big deal - they do have warnings about doing it too often but I don't know if that means daily or monthly or what) to recover it. Just easier to write it down somewhere first.

7

@packetmonkey
Thanks for all the advice. I ended up changing the IMEI number to that of an iPhone. It took at least a week but now TMO sees it in their system as an iPhone as well. Hopefully this will be the last time I need to worry about it. If I ever need to switch to a different carrier then I believe this should be done anyway.