How long after AT&T authorizes an unlock does it take?

[jent]

I just called AT&T about an old iPhone 3G that's out of contract and they said they would unlock it. They told me the request was successfully put through to Apple, and it would take up to twenty-four hours to unlock. They gave me the standard instructions, telling me to connect it to iTunes, back up, and then restore from backup.

A family member is going abroad tomorrow, so I'm hoping to have the phone fully unlocked. Said family member went through the process about an hour after talking to AT&T but the restore just completed normally and there was no "Congratulations, your iPhone is now unlocked" message. Does anyone here have any personal experience doing this? If so, about how long did it take?

 

[bsbuggs]

mine took 2 days...but I received an email confirming the unlock 4 days after the initial call.
I kept checking this free imei checker site: dev.mk, that's when i discovered it was actually unlocked. Once i did the restore I get the message---unlocked.

 

[Roessnakhan]

I think it varies - I had an iPhone unlocked within an hour or two after making the request. I used the online technical support rather than calling.

 

[jent]

mine took 2 days...but I received an email confirming the unlock 4 days after the initial call.
I kept checking this free imei checker site: dev.mk, that's when i discovered it was actually unlocked. Once i did the restore I get the message---unlocked.

So once it shows up on dev.mk as unlocked, is it truly unlocked? Or does that just mean that the carrier/Apple has flagged it as to be unlocked and that iTunes will unlock it during the next restore?

I just checked and it says unlocked.

 

[Lammercy]

That's the same thing I got.

 

[bniu]

as long as the person with physical possession of the phone has a laptop to restore the iPhone with, you'd be fine.

I unlocked my old 3GS that I gave to my sister a while back. I simply had her take a screenshot of the IMEI info and text it over to me, and I called ATT to request the unlock. Texted her back with the instructions and a few hours later, her phone became unlocked. We did all that and the phone was over 2000 miles away from me

 

[albertxp06]

Mine took about a four days. Still extremely happy about it considering it was an in-contract iPhone 4.
I didn't see a "Congratulations your iPhone is unlocked" screen unless I restored with a foreign SIM inserted