I know that many European carriers, including Orange in France, will unlock an iPhone4 that you purchase from them. I'll be moving to Europe in the fall and I'm wondering if a carrier there will unlock my AT&T iPhone4 when I sign up for their service. Does anyone know if this is possible? I sent the question to Orange's info request but have not heard back yet.
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Will Euro carriers unlock US iPhone 4?
- Thread starter daniels
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Carriers can only unlock a phone that is currently locked to that carrier.
They aren't allowed to unlock another phone.
Orange is going to tell you what we're telling you. They only unlock phones you purchase from them.
It looks like people are having luck with the turbo sim and the gray market unlock. You might want to try one of those.
It looks like people are having luck with the turbo sim and the gray market unlock. You might want to try one of those.
Thanks for the info everyone. I'm not willing to pay for either the turbo sim or the website unlock as I am not confident that either will last.
I think its just because they'd rather not do it and have you buy it from them, or they just can't.
I've never heard of a GSM carrier being able to unlock another carrier's phone. However, there's also the greed issue. Carriers have no financial motivation to unlock another carrier's phone.
They can unlock your phone if they wanted to but will most likely not. There have been instances of people on AT&T getting their phones unlocked through O2 but its few and far between. What that does say however, is that there is some sort of central database of whitelisted IMEI's. This makes the whole remote unlock a lot more appealing, and I will be trying it out this week.
Also, if you're moving, just sell your AT&T phone and use that towards purchasing one from wherever you're going. Most carriers will unlock it for free if you're on their service or charge as little as £15 if you bought the phone from them even if you're using a pay-as-you-go sim.
Also, if you're moving, just sell your AT&T phone and use that towards purchasing one from wherever you're going. Most carriers will unlock it for free if you're on their service or charge as little as £15 if you bought the phone from them even if you're using a pay-as-you-go sim.
If I'm ever in the UK, I'm going to try at least. Hell, I'll even bribe the person behind the counter. The worst they can do is say no!
Well some of the people weren't even in the UK - they just gave their IMEI to O2s online chat support thing. They basically said something to the effect of "I'm on vacation right now and I need to unlock my iphone... I left all of my billing info at home, but I can give you my IMEI"... seems to depend on the CSR you get. Some just enter the IMEI into the system, while others say they can't help.
I'm going to try tomorrow morning. Can't hurt, right?
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Maybe you shouldn't post your plan for the entire Internet and O2 to see.
terraphantm said:
Maybe you shouldn't post your plan for the entire Internet and O2 to see.
First of all O2 could easily track what IMEIs customers are using. Second, even if you forget your account number, no way you forget your own address, which they could use to look you up. A CSR could still not care and unlock you anyway, but they'd have to intentionally look the other way. Let us know how it goes.
I understand it'd be trivial for them to look up the info, I'm just going off what other people have reported. I'll try when their online chats open up. If I get it - great. If not, then it's not like I lost anything except a few minutes of my time
Why not? It's not like I'm the first person to have thought of such a scheme.
They have a financial motivation in that if they unlock my phone, I'll start paying them to use it on their network
