The phone has a SIM card, and a phone number, as evidenced by the fact that he "did not pay it for a while" rather than never having had a plan. So the phone is

The phone has a SIM card, and a phone number, as evidenced by the fact that he "did not pay it for a while" rather than never having had a plan. So the phone is active and can connect to the network and authenticate with a base station and attempt to make outgoing calls. Those attempts will be rejected by his phone provider. Incoming texts will also be rejected and not delivered. In other countries (I know about Ireland, anyway) this isn't generally true.