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Sim Card Not Supported - Help ?

B

Bongolo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 18, 2006
206
0
Hi all,

A bit of a long story but I really hope someone can help.

I have a 3G (16g) iPhone on O2 UK, as I travel to France regularly, I also have an iPhone with Orange (fr)

When the 3Gs came out I was gutted about the upgrade cost with O2 so decided to wait for the next revision even though I really wanted the extra storage.

I was in France last week and my contract with Orange Fr allowed me to upgrade my French iPhone for a discounted price so I thought: I know, I'll get the 3Gs (32gb) and use it in the UK with my O2 account, then, when the next iPhone revision comes out, I'll upgrade the UK iPhone & use the 3Gs with the French account.

The problem is I assumed it would just be a case of inserting the sim card from my O2 account in the 3Gs and activation ect would work fine but I was indeed mistaken!

I am getting this error message:

The Sim Card Inserted In This iPhone Does Not Appear To Be Supported
Click to expand...

I am absolutely gutted as I spend 90% of my time in the UK and was looking forward to using the 3Gs with the extra storage and functionality.

Could anyone let me know if there is a way I could use the 3Gs with my UK account ?

Many thanks in advance.
 
What firmware does your 3GS have? If you are one of the lucky ones and it came with 3.0 or 3.0.1, you can jailbreak and unlock it. If it came with 3.1 or above, at the moment, there is no unlock available. Your only hope is to contact Orange and see if they would unlock it for you.
 
Thanks for your comments Night Spring, do you know how I can find out the firmware version as it will not let me access anything?
 
Bongolo said:
do you know how I can find out the firmware version as it will not let me access anything?
Click to expand...

Um.... Oh dear, that's right! You are stuck at the emergency screen. Unfortunately, I've never had to deal with that myself -- I've always used AT&T.

Hmmmm. You do have a SIM card from Orange, right? Perhaps you could activate using that SIM? I don't think activating with Orange would hurt your chances of unlocking it with jailbreak methods if it does turn out you have 3.0.

P.S. In any case, I'd try contacting Orange first and see whether they'll unlock it for you and under what conditions. An offiical unlock is much easier to maintain than jailbreak unlocks.
 
Thanks Night Spring,

Firmware is: 3.1(7C144)

The problem is I cannot contact orange from the UK and will not be back in France for the next couple of months. :(
 
I would definitely stay away from the paid unlocking scams.

My advice would be this:

- for now, revert to your 3G for the UK

- when you are next in France, pay the unlocking fee to Orange France, as France is one of the countries where they offer legit "factory-unlock" through the carrier. I think it might be 50€ or something like that, and if it's still early in your contract you might have to beg a bit, but they can do it.
 
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