You know, I am always trying to find a new way or idea that other people arent doing. Today, we unlocked her phone. It was locked to Cingular, we can now use it at AT&T or T-Mobile. She ordered this phone off Ebay. We couldnt find anyone in all of Houston that could unlock it, they said you cant, that it was impossible. Well....we did. And I think I found a new idea for business :D

The reason I post this, is there's a lot of people here with cell phones, and I wonder if there is indeed a market for it. I can easily get everything I need to do almost all phones.. what do you think? Read on..

AT&T, Cingular, and T-Mobile (and a few others) use the same type simm card. We tried a friends AT&T card, "Invalid Sim". We tried another frineds T-Mobile sim card, same thing. The only thing that worked was a Cingular sim card. AFter unlocking, the others work also.

This is like so majorly kewl. We can use the simms from 3 major networks in our phone now....actually any network that uses the same sim type. I already added the service to my local computer business site. We'll see how it goes. Here's what I can currently unlock below.

Phone Brands::
Sony Ericsson

Phone Models::

T230 R2A007 R3A003 R4A008
T300 R1D011
T310 R1G001 R3B003
T39 R4A008
T610 R1A052 R1A081 R1L013 R3C002
R3C004 R4C003 R6B004
T616 R1B027
T630 R4C003
T68i R2B025 R8A004 R8A015
R520M R4A008
T100 R5A000 R8D000
T200 R7A006
Z600 R5B001
T65 R6A006

If you search ebay for cell phones, you'll find the unlocked ones sale for quite a bit more....

I unlocked my nokia 3650 by downloading a program that generates an unlock code. Entered it in presto unlocked. Amazing what you can find on the internet. =)

Yeah Nokia only requires codes. Sony phones and most others requires expensive cables AND codes. But you know what, I do need that Nokia code generator. Still have it?

I got my siemens phone off of ebay unlocked..... even though its unlocked, you don't get the internet features and such like if you had one that was just catered to your service.

Is their any legal issues involved in that?

Originally posted by SpiritAu
Is their any legal issues involved in that?

No. It's your phone and you can do whatever you want with it. ABout the only illegal thing is cloning. A phone can be cloned to steal another persons services, but that's a big nono. It's not very effective though since whichever phone that's closer to a tower is the one that's going to have the service. They cant both run at the same time. I tried that with a couple of my cingular phones once. Both phones would ring if the number was called, but only one could be used at a time. Depending on which got the signal the strongest (who was closer to tower), one would have service and the other wouldnt.

But other than that, you can do just about anything you want.

Well my wife just brought up an idea. For those who travel from US to Europe a lot, you can have a sim card for your US location and a sim card for your European location, and only have to use one phone. It's cheaper than paying roaming charges..

a quick search of my history found it.

http://www.btinternet.com/~unlocksmith/guide4.html

They say you get 5 tries or the phone locks up completely. Kinda scary mine unlocked with first code tho.

I dont know about the legal issues
But I think it is a big market

Been searching since you asked that. The only thing illegal I can find is changing the IME# (cloning), unless both phones are yours.

It may be a market, but its not applicable to the whole world, I think. In most countries, you can normally use (GSM 1800/900, NOT 1900) SIMs and change whenever and as many times as you want. Simple as that.

Of course, you have got a market in USA and Canada.

I'm sure there could be legal issues. Anything that's this good for the consumer, is generally illegal somewhere. :D :eek3:

What does 'unlocking' your phone mean?

Originally posted by SniperDevil
What does 'unlocking' your phone mean?

Basically an unlocked cingular phone (like he said) will work on Nextel if you have a Nextel Contract..

There are plenty of mobile hacks......dont remember the site cos I stopped using mobile years back. I think it was mobile.box.ck or something like that.

Originally posted by interactive
Basically an unlocked cingular phone (like he said) will work on Nextel if you have a Nextel Contract..

Actually, not Nextel as they have their own system. Their sims are a little bigger too. The only major ones here that are inter-changeable are Cingular, T-Mobile, some Verizon, and AT&T. Those are the big ones here outside of Nextel and Verizon.

Some sims of Verizon and Nextel are inter-changeable.

I will explain better. You buy a fancy dancy $300 phone from Cingular along with their service. At the end of the contract, you want to goto T-Mobile instead of sticking with Cingular. Well guess what, you gotta buy a new phone because T-Mobile cant take out Cingular's lock.

That's when you lookup someone like me :D (right now I can only do ericcson because that's the only thing I have equipment for thus far). I remove the Cingular lock from your fancy dancy $300 phone. You get a free cheapie from T-Mobile with your signup, take it's sim card and slip into your good phone. Since the phone is unlocked, the sim card works. Once I learn the correct ID's, I can also apply the network locks on the phones. Like I could remove the Cingular lock, and apply a T-Mobile lock, which allows you to use more of their network, such as mobile internet among other things.

I can understand someone here asking what it is, but when I called around and talked to techs at about 30 local cell phone stores, they had no clue what I was talking about. The ones who finally understood what I was wanting, they said it couldnt be done. Well, for all their "cocky know-it-all smarter-than-thou attitudes", I proved them wrong.. A few, very few, knew exactly what I was talking about, but didnt know anyone who could do it. It was one of those cases where if you want it done, and done right, you have to do it yourself. And I stumbled onto a nice little money making niche in doing so..

well i think its a good idea, you should see the amount of people on the sunday markets here doing it.


they charge £5 and bam its done in front of your eye's using a laptop and a wire normaly:)


i would say go for it try doing the local flea market, get a stand take the laptop and charge whatever you think people will pay and make sure you get a bit of a crowd when you do one so they can see its safe.....

I was charged 15£ for my phone to unlock it from Orange so that I could use T - Mobile :(

EDIT: From a Mobile store too, not a Market

Originally posted by Webdude
No. It's your phone and you can do whatever you want with it. ABout the only illegal thing is cloning. A phone can be cloned to steal another persons services, but that's a big nono. It's not very effective though since whichever phone that's closer to a tower is the one that's going to have the service. They cant both run at the same time. I tried that with a couple of my cingular phones once. Both phones would ring if the number was called, but only one could be used at a time. Depending on which got the signal the strongest (who was closer to tower), one would have service and the other wouldnt.

But other than that, you can do just about anything you want.


My friend lost his phone and got a new one. After he found his phone and they both would ring also. Whoever answered first got the call though. Not strongest signal. Upstate NY here

this is pretty old news to my knowledge, I know a person who can unlock any phone for a fiver ...

Originally posted by Webdude
Well my wife just brought up an idea. For those who travel from US to Europe a lot, you can have a sim card for your US location and a sim card for your European location, and only have to use one phone. It's cheaper than paying roaming charges..
Most European phones are slightly different to their North American counterparts.

For example, I have a siemens cellphone in Canada, and thought i could just swap sim card's when I went over home to Ireland, but it doesn't work that way. I can't remember exactly, but I think they are differently ridged, or slightly different in size.

I now have the same model of phone, both in Dublin, and NS, but they cannot share sim card's.. if I switch the card's around, they don't work.

I'm not sure if it's a siemens issue, or a general act done by the companies, to ensure channel-hoppers have to buy two phones, or go tri-band (?)

Simon

yeh actually eurpean and american phones are different running on 1800Hz and 900Hz something like that. But the again, a lot of the new phones coming out are tri-band meanding they can be used internationally. But these are the newest ones of course.

Pretty much every phone shop in the UK will unlock a phone for you charging about £10. I got a phone off Ebay which was unlocked, was oringinally on T-Mobile. Then I could just put my old sim card in and was up and running straight away.

A friend of mine runs a succesful unlocking company on the internet. He has even quit a full time job and survives very well on just unlocking.

I am not sure how long this will last though as providers (As far as I know) are going to be selling phones without the SP locks on soon because of how easy it is to unlock a phone.

Unlocking is not illegal but changing the IMEI number or unblocking a blocked phone is illegal.

On Nokia phones you can do this with a code (Up to 5 attempts) and then you need to use a cable to unlock it after it fails 5 times.

Software should unlock all DCT3 and DCT4 phones.

Originally posted by IHSL
I'm not sure if it's a siemens issue, or a general act done by the companies, to ensure channel-hoppers have to buy two phones, or go tri-band (?)

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. In order for someone to do that, the phone would have to be tri-band

Yep... Uk uses dual band (GSM 1800 and GSM 900) and the US uses GSM 1900. So without a triband phone you wouldnt be able to use a uk sim card in a us phone.

...unlocking phones is really an old thing... ...I know a bunch of guys that are into this... ...five years ago you had to hand your phone over and wait for a couple of days to get it back unlocked... ...nowadays you just make a call, meat in a parking lot, a guy brings a bunch of different wires to make sure he's got the right switch for your type of phone, connects it to his iPaq does a couple of things and you get your phone back unlocked in a minute, you pay from $10 to $50 bucks depending on a phone and that's it...

Or you could just download a free peice of software to generate a code for you based on your network, country and IMEI number. It's a free download also.

Originally posted by Webdude
No. It's your phone and you can do whatever you want with it. ABout the only illegal thing is cloning. A phone can be cloned to steal another persons services, but that's a big nono. It's not very effective though since whichever phone that's closer to a tower is the one that's going to have the service. They cant both run at the same time. I tried that with a couple of my cingular phones once. Both phones would ring if the number was called, but only one could be used at a time. Depending on which got the signal the strongest (who was closer to tower), one would have service and the other wouldnt.

But other than that, you can do just about anything you want.

Is it illegal to clone your own phone? Right now I have a Treo 600 w/ Sprint PCS which is a great phone but I would love to get a small flip phone for certain occasions ...

Can you help me with that Webdude?

If all the phones are yours, you can clone them. I cant do Sprint yet...sorry.

Well let me know when you can, I will definitly use you.

Webdude, you need to change your nick to UnlockDude :D

Originally posted by pmoduk2
I was charged 15£ for my phone to unlock it from Orange so that I could use T - Mobile :(

EDIT: From a Mobile store too, not a Market


you got ripped off then :) its been a fiver for years and most of them chuck somekind of freebee in with it now due to so many doing it........

It's Orange, are you surprised :P They sent it to Orange to have it unlocked :( So they probably added 5£ for their own profit

Here is a site that is doing what you are talking about ...just for Nokia by the looks of it.

http://www.unlockphonesonline.com/

Simon

I must agree, it's a really good business. There are people unlocking any kind of mobile phone, for about $5 they can do whatever you want with your phone, even upgrade the software, change it etc. I had my last phone "upgraded" with some new software and I was amazed:)

Nokia is by far the easiest. Simple codes you punch into the phone.

The one I am trying to figure out now is my Nextel Motorola i90c radio phone... they sure didnt make these ones easy...

Originally posted by lorandm
I must agree, it's a really good business. There are people unlocking any kind of mobile phone, for about $5 they can do whatever you want with your phone, even upgrade the software, change it etc. I had my last phone "upgraded" with some new software and I was amazed:)

yea gotta agree with the update thing too, a pal of mine bought a camera phone for a couple of hundred quid a few weeks later the next model came out same phone but you got video capabilitys for the same price, so he took it to the market and got it sorted it now does the video and all for about a fiver.......

Originally posted by Webdude
No. It's your phone and you can do whatever you want with it. ABout the only illegal thing is cloning. A phone can be cloned to steal another persons services, but that's a big nono. It's not very effective though since whichever phone that's closer to a tower is the one that's going to have the service. They cant both run at the same time. I tried that with a couple of my cingular phones once. Both phones would ring if the number was called, but only one could be used at a time. Depending on which got the signal the strongest (who was closer to tower), one would have service and the other wouldnt.

But other than that, you can do just about anything you want.

That is absolutely awesome to know.

Over the weekend I Flexed and Flashed my v300 and made it a v600 (Basically unlocking anything T-Mobile thinks I shouldn't use and adding a few other features).

I also unlocked it by following a few guides. As long as you have a data cable and the resources everything only takes a few minutes (well about 15 total).

Here is a good guide for flexing and flashing:
http://www.mob453.com/phones/motorola_v600/

hehe, you wouldn't get any work here in Belgium since it's illegal for the operator/producer to lock the phone to an operator.