Comments on: Locked Cell Phones

Question: Locked Cell Phones

namespan — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:20:20 -0800

"Locked" cell phones. How locked are they? If I want to buy a phone that was used on AT&T and use it with T-Mobile -- or say, go between Verizon and Sprint -- how much of a headache am I putting myself in for?

By: BlueTrain

BlueTrain — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:38:29 -0800

Give us the model and make and we'll find the unlock code. Almost every phone is unlockable.

By: Hackworth

Hackworth — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:39:11 -0800

unlocking your mobile phone

By: planetkyoto

planetkyoto — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:39:32 -0800

Here is an article that was linked somewhere last week describing the unlocking of cellphones for use on other networks. This site was linked to in the article.

By: namespan

namespan — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:44:57 -0800

It's an Ericsson (sp) T68i ... a friend wants to get rid of it. He's ditching AT&T for Verizon. I've heard good things about the T68i's in an earlier thread here somewhere.

By: birdherder

birdherder — Mon, 31 May 2004 16:20:16 -0800

The T68i is a GSM phone and Verizon doesn't have a GSM network so it won't work. T-Mobile and some Cingular regions use GSM so with the unlock code you can use it on those networks.

By: namespan

namespan — Mon, 31 May 2004 16:31:55 -0800

What I meant is... I have T-Mobile, and he thinks he may be willing to sell me the phone for around $20-30. He knows he can't take the phone with him if he goes Verizon. But if we can unlock it affordably, that might be a good deal.

Where it gets more interesting is that I have a Sanyo 4900 that I used under Sprint for a while. If we can unlock that too, then we could just trade, for whatever the unlocking fees are, which might be more affordable all around.

By: birdherder

birdherder — Mon, 31 May 2004 17:36:34 -0800

ohhh... then yes you could use the t68i on t-mobile if you get it unlocked. however, i don't think you unlock the sprint phone and use it on verizon.

By: BlueTrain

BlueTrain — Mon, 31 May 2004 18:00:50 -0800

Here is one site that can help you. My best advice to google "free unlock t68i" until you get lucky. I've unlocked three phones, in the past 2 weeks, for free already (I love buying/switching phones).

By: nathan_teske

nathan_teske — Mon, 31 May 2004 21:04:36 -0800

When I had my T68i unlocked, a shop had to to do it for me --- needed a special cable. I know some of the Nokia phones can be unlocked by punching in a code, but not the sony ericsson phones.

By: smcniven

smcniven — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 05:37:19 -0800

My experience is similar. I was able to unlock my Nokia after downloading a key generator. The site I found that at was Nokia specific, but I found that site through a discussion board: Howard Forums.

By: mimi

mimi — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 06:33:03 -0800

Be warned, though, that not every service company will agree to let you use some other company's phone; we have US Cellular at the moment, and they got really hinky at us for bringing in my mother-in-law's old AT&T phone to be added to our plan. Grr.