What's the deal with O2 unlocking iPhones?!

They will unlock a pay n go iPhone immediately for £15 but you lose the unlimited wifi/data deal straight away

 

If you're on contract they'll unlock it anytime. If you're on PAYG, it'll cost £15 which comes from your credit.

Extra caveat on PAYG: But if you unlock your iPhone less than 12 months after you bought it, O2 take off the free Web & Wi-Fi Bolt On (that they added for the first 12 months).

 

I recently unlocked my, previously jailbroken and unlocked, 3G and they were happy to just take a random PAYG o2 SIM card and my hard (ish) earned £15. It took them 3 days, rather than the quoted 14.

 

My unlock was instant, however, I must stress that it costs at least £15, the other £5 magically disappeared from my balance.

 

I think it is premature to assume that O2 will take the same approach to unlocking with iPhone 4 as they did (and are continuing to do) with the 3GS.

I hope that they do, but we'll have to see.

 

I have a question. I'm on pay monthly with O2. I've unlocked my own phone but I've heard I can use my sim card to unlock other iPhones too. If I wanted to unlock my mum's would I need to leave my sim in there until I got the text message saying it had been done?

 

OK, stupid question...if I put in a request now for my 3Gs to be unlocked (which is being given to my husband) and then put in another request to have my 4 unlocked as and when, will that throw up any issues?

We're going to Ireland next month and I want to put Irish sims in them so we're not massively stung on the data.

Thanks

 

It's certainly not instant - it is generally of the order of a few days.

You can get round this bit by using just any old O2 PAYG SIM (you can probably pick one up for free from an O2 shop). The benefit of doing this is that you can then sell the iPhone PAYG SIM on ebay or similar for a fair amount as people will value the 12 months of data it comes with - especially if the SIM hasn't yet been used.

You can buy it from anywhere - as long as it as O2 iPhone, O2 will unlock it. You can't unlock it in the shop though - it has to be done via their website.

I agree with this - I'm cautiously optimistic that they won't treat it any differently though, as it was only when the other networks started selling the iPhone that they introduced the official unlock, and this time round even more networks are selling it.

You shouldn't need to leave it in there to receive the text (the text is purely for information) - but it will be an idea to have at least put your SIM in her iPhone and made a couple of calls to register it as having been used in the phone.

No shouldn't be any problem - you can use one SIM to unlock as many iPhones as you like. As above though, it's worth at least using your SIM in the phone before you put the request in, just so O2 can see that it's been used in it.

 

Thanks for the help iSimon. I thought the text was just for info given how I understood how the unlocking works.

Londoner888. When I unlocked my 3gs a couple of weeks ago it took about three days.

 

Let me get this straight -- The tone of the two questions above make it sound as though a prepaid O2 customer can pay their $15 unlocking fee once, and that one-time payment entitles them to unlock an unlimited number of other peoples' iPhones simply by inserting their SIM card for a few minutes and placing a few calls -- no further action or communication with O2 required.

Is that correct? I feel as though there must be more to it, because it seems too good to be true.