What is ESN stand for and what does it mean?

I'm trying to sell a iphone so i was trying to average out the price.people state bad ESN and stuff like that. So i need to know what it is. And when you answer don't say anything that involves CDMA ensles you identify what that is too.

An ESN is an "Electronic Serial Number" which is used by CDMA carriers (Verizon and Sprint in the US) to identify the owner of a phone.

  • What really is a bad ESN? Does my situation mean I have one on my IPhone? Do I have a bad ESN? I fully own my phone. I got it through sprint free when I signed up for my plan and we also got a Note 3 for 100 bucks (we paid it upfront ) on the same plan. But we left our provider for AT&T. We did not pay our final bill yet but there's no charges at all for our phones on the bill. So if we fully own our phones, but did not pay the final bill yet (and is way past due in a collection agency… Unfortunately… ), do we have bad ESNs?
  • What does it mean if an iPhone has a bad ESN and can I buy it? My iPhone 5s was stolen and Verizon as usual is not taking any pity from anyone nor would they offer me a replacement at a discount so if I want the replacement I would have to buy it at full price. I looked online on ebay and saw some iPhone 5s that were really cheap selling but when I look it says bad ESN. I read somewhere that you can't activate this with your provider is that is the case. Is this true and what exactly is bad ESN on an iPhone?
  • What does DNS stand for and what does it do? Like when you are on your iPhone and you go to connect to a wireless connection. And it says DNS right under router.
  • What does Clean ESN, ready for activation on swappa or ebay mean? I'm about to buy an iPhone that's new and also listed as Clean ESN, ready for activation. I know that means i can activate it with the carrier its locked to which is AT&T but can i use online unlocking service like iunlockpro or any another one to unlock it so that i can use it with any GSM? Or is this only for the carrier its locked to since it new? thanks. the carrier is Sprint not AT&T

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