About legally unlocking an iPhone 3G

[Deep_Thought]

By the way, since this thread has been revived from the dead, I'll post an update to my post.

Movistar unlocked my iPhone. 🙂

They'll unlock it for you after you've been with the contract for 12 months. If you get a customer support representative that won't do it for you, just hang up and call back. I got both mine and my girlfriend's iPhones unlocked.

Cool, I'm going to try again with mine, its on a company contract and last time I asked our account manager he told me that it was impossible to unlock it!
Guess I'll try again!

 

[ronnyuk]

There are loads of things that are legal to do, but could void a contract if you did them.

For example: Say you are a hockey star who has signed a sponsorship deal to only wear Rbk equipment in public, and in exchange you'll get $2 million per year from Reebok.

You wouldn't be breaking any laws if you were to work out in public wearing Bauer equipment, but it would still be a breach of the agreement you made with Reebok, and if Reebok got wind of it, they'd be within their rights to void the contract and withhold their $2 million.

It would be the same deal with unlocking phones and warranties.


In Canada, I believe that locking (and unlocking) of cell phones is totally unregulated.

If you have the means to unlock it, you are permitted to do so. But the carriers are permitted to refuse to help you do it. And the manufacturers are permitted to go out of their way to make unlocking as difficult as possible.

What a crap analogy lol

For starters we are not sponsored to use our iphones, we are also not freaking paid to use them.... We pay them to use them, we take out a contract and at the point of taking out said contract said phone is property of purchaser, unless you are "renting" the equipment from the network, then it belongs to them.

The best way to discribe the fiasco is a shambles, after your contract is up you should be allowed to unlock the phone or it should auto unlock.

Heres an analogy that is similar...

You walk into a car dealership and buy a brand new Porsche 911, you take out 1 years worth of finance at stupid % and you put 20% down, you then drive the car out the showroom but cannot drive over 50mph or leave the town it was purchased in while it is under finance.

After 1 year you pay all the finance off and the car is yours "yippeee" but you find the finance company have fitted a speed limiter which cannot be removed and as soon as you take it out of town the engine shuts off and cannot be restarted..... So you are stuck with a real nice car, that cannot work in another country... Oh and just to rub salt in the wounds when you bought the car they failed to mention that the Aircon would not work untill late SUMMER

That's how it is.