Remote iPhone Unlocking Services Discontinued After Supplier Pulls Plug

[NAG]

There's no surprise here; US carriers frown upon anyone rocking their profit yacht. And as Apple is not a carrier, it must kiss the collective tush of the US carrier oligarchy else lose billions of sales of their hipster iToys.

The problem here is that the US carriers have added to the general corruption the US Congress via PAC donations, lobbyist bribery, and other special treatment. The result is that the carriers refuse to offer unbundled products and services and so stifle honest competition.

Can you imagine if a car company X required any user of an Brand X car to buy only Brand X gasoline, to have the car serviced in only Brand X dealerships, to purchase only Brand X parts, and to have their car permanently disabled when the owner grows tired of paying after the car itself is completely paid? Yet the US carriers got away with all of this crap and more.

And that's why I gave up on expensive cell phones and expensive plans long ago. I use a cheap pay-as-you-go no-contract phone and my bill averages under $25 per month. Yes; it takes some discipline. But the personal satisfaction of not fattening the piggish carriers make the effort worth it.

Can you imagine your post maybe gaining credibility if you lost the random name calling? Just a thought.

 

[SavMBP15]

Your own ignorance does not serve YOU well. The DOJ has said you are permitted to jailbreak your device. Through jailbreaking you can perform an unlock. This is perfectly legal.

Don't berate others unless you actually know what you're talking about. It just makes you look ridiculous.

Do not say someone is ignorant when you are just as ignorant. Dept of Justice had nothing to do with making jail breaking legal or illegal. They just enforce the law.

The Library of Congress which deals with Copyright laws in the U.S. is the arm of the government that said on July 26, 2010:

The Librarian of Congress has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the next rulemaking.

(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

(3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

So I berate you now for berating others, who were berating others. The ridiculous flag has now been passed to you. I await the flag to come to me now.

 

[ciTiger]

This is really really bad news...
I was considering using the service next week...

 

[derkunstler]

The Future of American Industry?

Not that crime and sleaze are exempt from the current corporate entities. However, they at least still try to hide their wrong doings. Whereas now we may be seeing the start of the new corporate american industry. One that deals in 'official' open black market operations. Where shadow persons may leak information or have access to protected materials to be sold in an official manner under the logo of a Brand. I guess those dealing in illegal dvd's may one day even jump on the bandwagon with 'bootlegs.com'. "Our secret studio bootleggers have access to everything" "Wanna see Spiderman 6? Our secret operator can score for you footage of the film even before it's even completed!" Only $9.99! =))

 

[blackburn]

I've paid someone inside my operator to leak my unlocking code in the era of the un-unlocakble bb5 nokias. You would just send an letter with the money, your imei and you phone number, in a week got my phone unlocked.

Of course operators / apple / any other brand are going to crack down on unlocking.
Yet ist's kinda of stupid buying locked phones here the prices are almost the same

Anyway branding and locking should be ilegal, like in Italy all phones are sold unlocked (including the iphone).

 

[terraphantm]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

I've paid someone inside my operator to leak my unlocking code in the era of the un-unlocakble bb5 nokias. You would just send an letter with the money, your imei and you phone number, in a week got my phone unlocked.

Of course operators / apple / any other brand are going to crack down on unlocking.
Yet ist's kinda of stupid buying locked phones here the prices are almost the same

Anyway branding and locking should be ilegal, like in Italy all phones are sold unlocked (including the iphone).

If carriers couldn't put locks on the phones, they wouldn't subsidize the price... A significant portion of iPhone buyers are those who live paycheck to paycheck and would rather pay a monthly payment than buy something outright. As long as carriers need to subsidize the cost of the phone, they'll come carrier locked. I do think that the phone should be sold unlocked if I elect to buy it without subsidy though.

 

[blackburn]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)



If carriers couldn't put locks on the phones, they wouldn't subsidize the price... A significant portion of iPhone buyers are those who live paycheck to paycheck and would rather pay a monthly payment than buy something outright. As long as carriers need to subsidize the cost of the phone, they'll come carrier locked. I do think that the phone should be sold unlocked if I elect to buy it without subsidy though.

Yeah but that must be in the usa. Here you either get a loan from your bank or from your operator to pay the iphone, most phones have a 10 to 50 eur difference locked from unlocked. With contract you get it from 200 usd here its 250 minimum with a crappy plan that costs 60 euro a month and is worse than my 15 euro plan, and you only get 1gb of traffic. After 2 years you paid 1700 eur for a phone, with my plan and the phone unsubsidized it costs only about 1000 eur.

 

[zorinlynx]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)



If carriers couldn't put locks on the phones, they wouldn't subsidize the price... A significant portion of iPhone buyers are those who live paycheck to paycheck and would rather pay a monthly payment than buy something outright. As long as carriers need to subsidize the cost of the phone, they'll come carrier locked. I do think that the phone should be sold unlocked if I elect to buy it without subsidy though.

That doesn't make sense. There is a hefty ETF if you terminate your contract early, so the phone gets paid for regardless.

There is no reason, given that there are ETFs and contract terms, for phones to be locked anymore. It's purely all about control. They don't want you going to another carrier when your contract is up, or using your phone with prepaid SIMs in other countries.

 

[macUser2007]

Sure. The customer knows this before entering into the contract. If you cancel service, you have an overpriced iPod touch.

Well, yeah....

That's why I dumped my iPhones for a Google Nexus S.

I got sick of dealing with iffy iPhone jailbreaks, just so Apple can block them with some new and irrelevant update.

Now when I travel, all I have to do is buy a local SIM and I am good to go on whatever the local network is.

Oh, and I get access to Flash sites, and they ALL work beautifully. Amazing how liberating it is to be able to view the whole web.

I like the iPhone, but without an official way to unlock it, and without Flash, it's way too limited for my purposes.

Jobs got too cocky, and now Android will eat his cake....

 

[marksman]

There's no surprise here; US carriers frown upon anyone rocking their profit yacht. And as Apple is not a carrier, it must kiss the collective tush of the US carrier oligarchy else lose billions of sales of their hipster iToys.

The problem here is that the US carriers have added to the general corruption the US Congress via PAC donations, lobbyist bribery, and other special treatment. The result is that the carriers refuse to offer unbundled products and services and so stifle honest competition.

Can you imagine if a car company X required any user of an Brand X car to buy only Brand X gasoline, to have the car serviced in only Brand X dealerships, to purchase only Brand X parts, and to have their car permanently disabled when the owner grows tired of paying after the car itself is completely paid? Yet the US carriers got away with all of this crap and more.

And that's why I gave up on expensive cell phones and expensive plans long ago. I use a cheap pay-as-you-go no-contract phone and my bill averages under $25 per month. Yes; it takes some discipline. But the personal satisfaction of not fattening the piggish carriers make the effort worth it.

Congrats on having to use a sucky phone to make some kind of ambigous point.

If Gas stations sold cars that had limiters that only allowed them to receive gas from their gas stations they could do that.. Nothing stopping them from doing it.

 

[Daveoc64]

If carriers couldn't put locks on the phones, they wouldn't subsidize the price... A significant portion of iPhone buyers are those who live paycheck to paycheck and would rather pay a monthly payment than buy something outright. As long as carriers need to subsidize the cost of the phone, they'll come carrier locked. I do think that the phone should be sold unlocked if I elect to buy it without subsidy though.

No, see below:

That doesn't make sense. There is a hefty ETF if you terminate your contract early, so the phone gets paid for regardless.

There is no reason, given that there are ETFs and contract terms, for phones to be locked anymore. It's purely all about control. They don't want you going to another carrier when your contract is up, or using your phone with prepaid SIMs in other countries.

Exactly. The contract terms require you to keep paying the carrier regardless of what happens to the phone.

The only contract phone I've bought in the UK that was locked is my iPhone 4 - and I was able to unlock that through my carrier for free.

 

[eastercat]

If the person submitting the imei hadn't gotten greedy, we would still have the unlocking service.
I still have an unlockable bb, so it's not too big of a deal for me.

 

[marksman]

Yeah Europeans like to talk about how awesome their phone service is, that is why they pay like 400% more per minute of actual talk time than people in the United States.

The only reason they come out with smaller average bills is because they talk 1/6th as much on the phones as americans do.

Europe is great. You get to pay for smartphones in big lump sums up front and overpay for minutes. Sounds awesome. Wish we could have all that awesomeness here.

 

[utwarreng]

Do not say someone is ignorant when you are just as ignorant. Dept of Justice had nothing to do with making jail breaking legal or illegal. They just enforce the law.

The Library of Congress which deals with Copyright laws in the U.S. is the arm of the government that said on July 26, 2010:


So I berate you now for berating others, who were berating others. The ridiculous flag has now been passed to you. I await the flag to come to me now.

Touche, and I thank you for berating me for berating another with an incorrect fact who was berating...good God at this point I'm just confused!

But thank you for correcting me, I forgot it wasn't DOJ that ruled this; just took DOJ straight out of maclaptop's previous post.

And thus we once again see the importance of fact-checking and accurate posting based on just how easily misinformation can spread.

 

[Daveoc64]

Yeah Europeans like to talk about how awesome their phone service is, that is why they pay like 400% more per minute of actual talk time than people in the United States.

The only reason they come out with smaller average bills is because they talk 1/6th as much on the phones as americans do.

Europe is great. You get to pay for smartphones in big lump sums up front and overpay for minutes. Sounds awesome. Wish we could have all that awesomeness here.

While it's true we talk much less than Americans, last time I checked, the equivalent plan to mine costs much more with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile in the US.

The closest plan AT&T offers to mine costs £21 ($34) more than I pay - and it has 300 fewer minutes, plus any calls I received would be deducted from those fewer minutes. The iPhone costs more upfront and there's also a $36 activation fee - which I did not have to pay.

We also don't pay to receive calls or text messages, so people need fewer minutes/texts in their bundle as a result.

 

[Thermonuclear]

Congrats on having to use a sucky phone to make some kind of ambigous point.

If Gas stations sold cars that had limiters that only allowed them to receive gas from their gas stations they could do that.. Nothing stopping them from doing it.

Actually, my cheap phone works well for my needs. I get one every two or three years for under US$40 just to have a battery that holds a good charge. I feel no need to pay more than necessary, nor to brown-nose any corporate entity.

Oh, and you're also wrong in your second paragraph. Unnecessary post-purchase restrictions are generally illegal in the United States due to anti-trust law. This was not always true; back in the 1960s if you wanted a radio for a new car, you had to buy it from the manufacturer of the car. This changed by the start of the 1980s. Likewise, once the US Congress frees itself from the thralldom of US cell phone carriers, cell phone users will enjoy the same liberty and competition here as they already do in most of Europe and Asia. The US has long had the most expensive rates and least choice for telco and broadband products, but this is changing and will continue to change.

And if more people were like me, it would change damned fast as uncooperative companies would soon be bankrupt.

 

[powers74]

Nice

Well, there's a mystery. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this as it unfolds.

I use a cheap pay-as-you-go no-contract phone and my bill averages under $25 per month. Yes; it takes some discipline. But the personal satisfaction of not fattening the piggish carriers make the effort worth it.

So do you use NetZero or Juno?

 

[charlituna]

Ahh that would explain the amount of people that would pay this ridiculous fee just for an unlock.

*Edit* is that even legal? What use is your iPhone if you end your contract after the term?

Unfortunately for the consumer, right now it is totally legal in the US.

The most likely answer to the riddle is that the 'supplier' was an employee of whomever's server is needed to make the change. This person got caught and got fired etc. He or she might not have even been caught for this action. Those that will pull such stunts often pull others. He or she might have been forging clock in or out times for example. Or stealing supplies. Whatever.

 

[afd]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yeah Europeans like to talk about how awesome their phone service is, that is why they pay like 400% more per minute of actual talk time than people in the United States.

The only reason they come out with smaller average bills is because they talk 1/6th as much on the phones as americans do.

Europe is great. You get to pay for smartphones in big lump sums up front and overpay for minutes. Sounds awesome. Wish we could have all that awesomeness here.

While it's true we talk much less than Americans, last time I checked, the equivalent plan to mine costs much more with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile in the US.

The closest plan AT&T offers to mine costs £21 ($34) more than I pay - and it has 300 fewer minutes, plus any calls I received would be deducted from those fewer minutes. The iPhone costs more upfront and there's also a $36 activation fee - which I did not have to pay.

We also don't pay to receive calls or text messages, so people need fewer minutes/texts in their bundle as a result.

Going off topic a bit but, What does it cost to run an iPhone in the US? I paid £209($345) for an iPhone 4 32GB and pay £36(58) a month for 300 minutes, unlimited texts, 30 MMS and a GB of data shared between phone and tethering. I'm more of a texted than a talker so this tariff suits me fine, I don't think i have enough interesting things to say to fill more than 5 hours a month on the phone…

 

[macUser2007]

I left AT&T when I dumped my iPhones, but right now, for two Google Nexus S phones on T-Mobile US, for 1500 minutes, unlimited texts and data, I pay a total of $110. I am pretty sure my plan also includes free nights and weekends minutes, so effectively my talking needs are covered

AT&T is more expensive, so I hope the Feds kill its bid to acquire T-Mobile (which would make AT&T a GSM monopoly in the US).

 

[0007776]

So is the used market in America pretty much dead for older iPhones? People must have collections of old phones that are no use to man nor beast

nope, people can sell them to other AT&T users who are the only ones who can use a GSM iPhone in the US at 3G speeds T-Mobile, the other GSM carrier, uses different frequencies.

 

[Thermonuclear]

So do you use NetZero or Juno?

Neither, but perhaps I should look at those to see if I can get a better deal than I've got with Virgin Mobile.

VM can be a good deal; their target market includes teenagers and young adults who subsidize the rest of us by overpaying for downloads of ringtones and games.

 

[StyxMaker]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8H7)

There's no surprise here; US carriers frown upon anyone rocking their profit yacht. And as Apple is not a carrier, it must kiss the collective tush of the US carrier oligarchy else lose billions of sales of their hipster iToys.

The problem here is that the US carriers have added to the general corruption the US Congress via PAC donations, lobbyist bribery, and other special treatment. The result is that the carriers refuse to offer unbundled products and services and so stifle honest competition.

Can you imagine if a car company X required any user of an Brand X car to buy only Brand X gasoline, to have the car serviced in only Brand X dealerships, to purchase only Brand X parts, and to have their car permanently disabled when the owner grows tired of paying after the car itself is completely paid? Yet the US carriers got away with all of this crap and more.

And that's why I gave up on expensive cell phones and expensive plans long ago. I use a cheap pay-as-you-go no-contract phone and my bill averages under $25 per month. Yes; it takes some discipline. But the personal satisfaction of not fattening the piggish carriers make the effort worth it.

If that's where your priorities are fine, my priorities are elsewhere.

 

[marksman]

While it's true we talk much less than Americans, last time I checked, the equivalent plan to mine costs much more with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile in the US.

The closest plan AT&T offers to mine costs £21 ($34) more than I pay - and it has 300 fewer minutes, plus any calls I received would be deducted from those fewer minutes. The iPhone costs more upfront and there's also a $36 activation fee - which I did not have to pay.

We also don't pay to receive calls or text messages, so people need fewer minutes/texts in their bundle as a result.

Doesn't matter how plans compare. It matters how much people are paying versus the minutes they use.

People in Europe end up paying significantly more per minute of actual usage than people in America.

That is the reason the plans are less expensive for more minutes there. You guys don't use as many minutes, so they can sell the plans for less. The net result though, is people in Europe get fewer minutes for more money.

If you get 500 minutes for $40 and an American gets 300 minutes for $50 but he uses 290 minutes and you use 90 minutes. Who is paying more per minute of use?

 

[Daveoc64]

Doesn't matter how plans compare. It matters how much people are paying versus the minutes they use.

People in Europe end up paying significantly more per minute of actual usage than people in America.

That is the reason the plans are less expensive for more minutes there. You guys don't use as many minutes, so they can sell the plans for less. The net result though, is people in Europe get fewer minutes for more money.

If you get 500 minutes for $40 and an American gets 300 minutes for $50 but he uses 290 minutes and you use 90 minutes. Who is paying more per minute of use?

Whether you use it or not, you're paying less for it here.

The only reason to pay more on a contract than you need to is to get a phone cheaper.

At the end of 24 months, a customer in the UK than a customer in the US.