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O2 Offers to Unlock iPhones in UK

unlocking old iphones??

so will they unlock the iphone 2G which is sitting around collecting dust since i upgraded to the 3GS? how do you go about doing that? just tell them it's your "active phone" or what?
 
Now that we have competition in Canada, we should be able to officially pay off any remaining subsidy and unlock our iPhones as well.

Should, yes... but will we?
 
This is fantastic.

Just requested to unlock my iPhone. Contract is up in January anyway, but this allows me to use Orange Wednesdays in the UK without needing another phone. I can just change the sim for when I need it. Bonus

Not to mention, it means I can sell my iPhone to my brother when I change phones which is good for him, as he's on Vodafone
 
declandio said:
Cool, thanks. Reason I asked is that there was talk on another thread that the little process they make you go through in iTunes enables the phone to work with a new sim, but isn't really a proper 'unlock' as the name might suggest... i.e if you stick a Vodafone sim in after unlocking from O2, it will just work on Vodafone (and maybe O2 still).

Cheers....
Click to expand...


Totally backup the comments from JordanNZ as well. I did an official unlock with an Australian carrier (AUD150 in my case) and since the unlock command came through iTunes to the phone, I've been able throw all kinds of sim kinds into with no need to reconnect.

You'll love it. An unlocked iPhone is the only way to go!
 
Requiring 12 months of PAYG sucks, given that you could have not topped up at all during that time so O2's income would be the same.

If I could buy a 3GS at unit-only price, have PAYG voice and a £15/month 3G data plan from one of the many UK suppliers doing it, then you'd be talking. But I'm not buying an iPhone then waiting a year to be able to do it.
 
Ok. I have a question. Vaguely relevant :p. I have been in talks with a friend whereby we swap our phones. She wants the iPhone, and Ive been kind of wanting a go on the Blackberry. Problem was she had a Vodafone SIM. I know I can put my Sim card in the Blackberry as long as I ring up o2 beforehand and say that I want the apn? changed to Blackberry (or so Ive read)

For her however, would she need to change the apn to anything in particular? ie, the data package from Blackberry to something else? Thanks.
 
WOOOO this should be a legal requirement for ALL providers on all phones, after the end of the contract to unlock it for FREE. a few european countries have it as a legal requirement, and its excellent (for us of course:p)
 
Got really happy about this as I'm a pay monthly customer, but then I remembered that I bought my 3GS on PAYG and continued to use the contract SIM from my old 3G in it. So I guess that even though I'm a contract customer, my phone will be treated as a PAYG? Only one way to find out I guess... :rolleyes:
 
Just thought - is this likely to also unlock tethering with a 3rd party SIM? e.g. if I stick a T-Mobile SIM in my phone, will I be able to tether to my laptop without any hacks?
 
El Capitano said:
Requiring 12 months of PAYG sucks, given that you could have not topped up at all during that time so O2's income would be the same.

If I could buy a 3GS at unit-only price, have PAYG voice and a £15/month 3G data plan from one of the many UK suppliers doing it, then you'd be talking. But I'm not buying an iPhone then waiting a year to be able to do it.
Click to expand...

Definitely agree - why the wait? It's not like PAYG customers are obligated to top up within that time. Maybe if there's a decent change to T&C you can use that to justify demanding them to unlock the phone.
Was the PAYG really subsidised that much? Or is O2 being an Rse?
 
Submitted my form yesterday afternoon and got a reply from O2 last night saying that they weren't unlocking iPhones...

I guess someone forgot to tell the outsourced staff about this!
 
Officially unlocking an unofficially unlocked phone?

What happens to those of us who got an O2 iphone in the good old pre-3g days and "forgot" to activate it, instead "accidentally" unlocking it unofficially?

I've been using mine on orange since I got it, but I'd rather have it officially unlocked (especially as I might need to sell it soon).

I'm tempted to fill in the form with a bunch of fake details, and see what happens. Any possible downside to doing that?
 
Does the form ask for the IMEI, or just the phone number? The reason I ask is that I sold my contract 3G and replaced it with a PAYG 3GS which I just put my monthly SIM into. I would like to unlock the 3GS, but I'm wondering how the whole thing works. I don't want to fill out the form only for them to unlock the 3G that I don't own anymore. Anyone who has had a replacement iPhone under warranty would have the same issues. How does this actually work in terms of tying the SIM and/or number to the physical phone to be unlocked?

Edit: never mind, I see it does ask for IMEI so I filled out the form anyway. We'll see if they will in fact unlock a PAYG phone being used with a contract SIM that's only a few months old :)
 
it asks for IMEI. I am in the same position. I replaced my iPhone under warranty a couple of weeks back. So obviously the details o2 have of the original IMEI (if they took it down) would not correspond to the one I put in today.
 
Filled the form but i seem to have been denied. Bought the phone PAYG but never used the PAYG sim and have been using my 2yr+ old Simplicity SIM. Meh...i'll just use the alternative method when i'm ready to dump it, im unlikely to be using an iPhone in 6 months anyway
 

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NightFox said:
Just thought - is this likely to also unlock tethering with a 3rd party SIM? e.g. if I stick a T-Mobile SIM in my phone, will I be able to tether to my laptop without any hacks?
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That's VERY interesting.

I have a 2G iPhone which I bought second hand a few months ago. I put a free o2 sim in it and have been happily using it for calls / texts / data ever since. I'll get the unlocking process started forthwith.

Tethering would be enough to get me to jump. Probably to T-Mobile.
 
Willis said:
This is fantastic.

Just requested to unlock my iPhone. Contract is up in January anyway, but this allows me to use Orange Wednesdays in the UK without needing another phone. I can just change the sim for when I need it. Bonus

Not to mention, it means I can sell my iPhone to my brother when I change phones which is good for him, as he's on Vodafone
Click to expand...

Pro-tip: get an Orange SIM, save the number in your phone as Orange, forward text, ching ching ;)
 
o2 seem intent on driving me mad. I just spent hours looking into other options (jailbreaking, buying from Italy etc) because I was told TODAY by a customer services rep that o2 categorically do not, and will never unlock iPhones. . . then I see this :rolleyes:
 
I Have an iPhone contract i got with my 3G.

Sold my 3G to get the 3G S on PayGo

I Guess i wont be able to unlock my 3G S?
 
Well I ported over to vodafone last week. I tried to use the online form but obviously now it doesn't work. Poor very poor as when I called o2 I was still told they don't unlock them. Finally someone said they need to adjust something on their system. Will take 24 hours but I'm not holding my breath.
 
This is for people who purchased the 3GS outright to replace their 3G.

K here is my story on this yesterday i found out you can pay to unlock your iphone (this is what i though) but they say you need to have the handset for a minimum of 12 months before hand i asked why they said its in the T&Cs so i went ok so i looked at the T&Cs guess what its not there.

Now trade and standards legal team will be getting involved in this matter due to the fact they still dispute the T&Cs for the iphone they say its not the right one lmao yeah right but unfortunately there legally bound by the T&Cs that i got when i purchased my iphone so basically as it does not specify that you must be with them for any period of time in any way, now this is a fault on there part as this is what a agent said we never thought the iphone would be untethered so they never put it in Neutral em fail so this is to every one wanting there iphone unlocked your in your rights to do so due to a there arrogance.

you can contact your local trading standards office to get more info on this as they say this is ridiculous.

Please note there are two versions of T&Cs for pay as you go the normal pay as you go phones and the iPhone Pay as you go T&Cs as the iphone is not like any other hand set it had its own T&Cs this is where they made the mistake.
 
I might well go ahead and do this. I'm probably going to stay with O2 when my contract runs out (looking at Orange's current data allowances:rolleyes:), but at least this way I can pass my phone onto someone else...
 
O2 Pay&Go is £10/month for unlimited data

El Capitano said:
Requiring 12 months of PAYG sucks, given that you could have not topped up at all during that time so O2's income would be the same.
Click to expand...

I got a 3GS on the day it came out and went for PAYG and am still using the original £10 top-up .. so no real income for O2 since then ... I'm based in the East Midlands and have had no real issue with 3G access, so I'm happy(ish) to wait until next July to be able to unlock it.

El Capitano said:
If I could buy a 3GS at unit-only price, have PAYG voice and a £15/month 3G data plan from one of the many UK suppliers doing it, then you'd be talking. But I'm not buying an iPhone then waiting a year to be able to do it.
Click to expand...

Well the O2 PAYG "unlimited" data plan is actually quite cheap at £10/month and includes free Wifi from BTOpenZone and The Cloud (so that's £120 out of the £440 I paid) ... so it compares very well against options from T-Mobile, 3, Vodafone etc. I'm not a big fan of O2 but my experience has been really okay over the last 5 months.
 
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