Earlier this week, I received a Consumer Cellular SIM card in the mail after requesting that from a customer service rep from Consumer Cellular.  I trimmed the card down to the mini size required by the iPhone 4S, using the AT&T SIM card as a template.  Last night, I inserted that SIM card into the iPhone and immediately had voice service.  No jailbreaking done (yet).  I was able to send texts using Messages and use Safari, so I thought I was done.  However, one thing I'm hoping for is being able to use the iPhone as a hotspot for my iPad, but when I went to Settings > General > Network, there was the spinning ball indicating that it wasn't "connected."  So I went to unlockit.com.nz and downloaded the settings for Consumer Cellular to unlock the phone.  I again inserted my CC card.  This time I noticed that the option for a hotspot was no longer visible, but the voice and data functions were still operating (I thought), so I went to bed feeling pretty good about things.

Then, on the way to church this morning, I discovered that I didn't actually have a network connection for  data and Internet.  All along last night while I was testing things, I had actually been getting my data via my home network Wi-Fi instead of directly from a cellular network.  The only thing I know that works right now is my Wi-Fi and the phone.

I'm going to have to do some more studying to see what else to try to get data working without a reliance on Wi-Fi.  I also notice that I've lost voice dictation for messages and email when I'm not connected to Wi-Fi.