Iphone 8 activation?

I recently bought an unlocked iphone 8 and i tried activating it by plunging it in to my laptop and running itunes but it says i need a sim card? Does this mean the phone wasn't unlocked after all? Is there any way to check the carrier of it?

On pretty much all iPhone models, you need to put in a SIM card at least one during the setup process. It doesn't matter if the phone is unlocked or not; it still needs a SIM card. There's no way around this.

If the phone is unlocked, it will accept any carrier's SIM as long as it is physically compatible. If it isn't unlocked, it will only accept the SIM card of the carrier that it is locked to. And as far as I'm aware, there's no way to know what carrier the phone is from.

Call your carrier and they should send you one

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