I am not certain if I understand you correctly and it might help to get a little bit more information. Are you saying that the sim card is not from the carrier? My best guess would be that you are dealing with a sim card from an non-approved carrier for that particular phone. I suppose in order for your iphone to read the sim card it would have to be "unlocked", allowing it to use a SIM card from any provider. I hope that this makes sense and gets you on the right track. Good luck...