[jtmmouse]

Hey guys, I am new iPhone user and been browsing the forums for the past week and I wanted to thank everyone for all their insightful posts. I know this is my first post but I wanted to let the community know about the working hardware unlocks for the 2.2 iPhone.

As many of you guys having the same problem of having an iPhone 3g with the updated 2.2 firmware with baseband upgrade. Also like many of you I do not want to pay the ridiculous AT&T rates. So I have bought several SIM card hardware unlocks to fix this.

So far I have BOUGHT the new Gevey SIM and REBEL for the 2.2 firmware. Friend of mine bought the Any-Network SIM.

Issues with the SIM Cards and the FIX!

Gevey SIM - eBay @ $25
This was my first purchase and it worked fine, however I live in a house that receives horrible reception so I would lose service. Whenever I lost service the SIM card would not reconnect to my t-mobile network and I would have to reinsert the SIM card into my blackberry and then back into the iPhone. My fix around this was to just turn the phone off whenever I walk around the house. I was able to keep it on in my room cause there is a spot on my desk that I dont lose signal.

Any-Network SIM - From their website @ £29.95 ($45 USD) + S&H
From what my friend tells me, also on t-mobile, the SIM sporadically loses signal, drops calls, and has to be replaced into a t-mobile phone similar to the Gevey. For the price, Gevey has not dropped a call.

Now my newly purchased Rebel SIM, I paid $70 USD total.
I know this is a lot of money compared to the rest, but let me explain. By purchasing overseas the s&h costs was expensive, so I called up a few friends that I knew that had the 2.2 firmware and found out if they wanted to split the price for this. They were all having issues with service from their cards. One of them was reluctant since he has read some bad reviews, but I purchased it anyways for him. What I bought was the 3 Rebel SIMs + Compact Reader special package. You have to download their reader driver for this to work. Their site was real helpful with videos and their response time to emails was quick, avg 30 mins.

I have lost service in the house, Rebel SIM was able to pick it back up instead of going in the Searching, No Service loop. Able to access voicemail and all data plans. I dont know if this is because of the Rebel SIM but I have NEVER received 3-4 bars in the house, right now I am looking at my phone with 4 bars of reception. This is impressive.

Rebel SIM took 1 day to ship FROM the UK, impressively fast shipping. FedEx tracking shows shipped Dec 16, receive before Dec 17, 10:30AM EST... got it at 9:45

So guys, if you want a working solution I do suggest you finding a few friends and get the Rebel SIM. It was the best one, and you can upgrade it!

p.s - I hate those who are still on the 2.1 firmware... die in a fire. Dev-Team Blog

[Poseidon79]

Good information. I changed your thread title to "Gevey vs Rebel vs Any-Network SIM cards" to better reflect the content of your post.

[jtmmouse]

I think my saved my edit after yours, oops.

[chewg74]

Thanks! I've been searching all over for a reliable 2.2 unlock sim. Does GPRS or 3G data work?

[jtmmouse]

I'm not sure for GPRS or 3G data. We are all running on t-mobile sims, we run on EDGE so cannot verify. I don't see why not though.

[ZIGE]

I have bought rebel sim and received it yesterday, it worked perfectly for 2 days and then i was back to the no service message. it seems that it the iphone has somehow adjusted to my sim card (sounds stupid, i know) but i have tried other sim cards with the rebel sim and they seem to be working just like mine did..

i think that rebel sim has only found a temporary solution that doesn't last long.. i guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with jtmmouse after he uses it for a while.. i hope my problem is an isolated one..

[jtmmouse]

You can try putting it in a t-mobile phone and then putting it back, I had to do that with my Gevey. My rebelSIM is able to pick the service back up after searching outdoors, not indoors in my house though.

[reddawg]

Gevey has just released a new unlocking SIM that unlocks firmware 2.2, has no signal loss or drops, and supports Airplane mode. Make sure you find an eBay seller that lists it as "Gevey 3G Plus 2". The "Gevey 3G Plus" only supports up to firmware 2.1.

I personally have an iPhone 3G firmware 2.1 unlocked by Gevey 3G Plus and jailbroken. I am using a Prepaid T-Mobile SIM for 2 months and have never had any problems what so ever. It has great reception, no crashes and I never have to remove the T-Mobile SIM card for any reason. I have installed BigBoss' TZones Hack and internet works great.

Most people that I know that have an unlocked iPhone 3G phone use the Gevey 3G Plus SIM unlocker and have had no problems.

Many of the cheap unlocking SIMs will either stop working after a short time, or require you to constantly eject your SIM then put it into another phone and then back into your iPhone to get EDGE working again. This has never happen to me using the Gevey 3G Plus.

I would recommend that everyone read user reviews of the different unlocking SIM solutions from websites like www.modymyi.com, www.iphonehacks.com and other places and then make up their own mind. Stay away from SIM unlockers that require cutting, grinding down of your SIM card. They don't make good contact between your SIM + unlocking SIM card and your phone. Make sure the unlocking SIM is 10mm or less and never force it into your phone unless you want it to get stuck.

Note: The iPhone DevTeam announced it has finally managed to unlock the iPhone 3G, scheduling a free unlocking application for a December 31 release. The only conditions are:

This unlock method is available to iPhone 3Gs that have 2.11.07 baseband or earlier, They did warn us. The unlock requires a jailbroken 3G iPhone. If you upgraded to firmware 2.2 you are screwed. Downgrading to firmware 2.1 doesn't restore the 2.11.07 baseband.

[jtmmouse]

Jesus, that couldn't sound any more like a telemarketer.

You personally have 2.1, upgrade to 2.2 and then tell me your experience with your hardware unlocks. Have you even tried any of the other SIM's?

[ZIGE]

Originally Posted by jtmmouse

You can try putting it in a t-mobile phone and then putting it back, I had to do that with my Gevey. My rebelSIM is able to pick the service back up after searching outdoors, not indoors in my house though.

I have done that many times... but get this:

After buying the sim card and it failing i contact the rebel sim staff and they tell me that they sent me the OLDER version of rebel sim and now i have to buy their sim card usb adapter to update it!!! they deliberately sent me the wrong one!!!

[daleski75]

Originally Posted by ZIGE

I have done that many times... but get this:

After buying the sim card and it failing i contact the rebel sim staff and they tell me that they sent me the OLDER version of rebel sim and now i have to buy their sim card usb adapter to update it!!! they deliberately sent me the wrong one!!!

Where are you from Zige? as I have a adapter to update it so maybe we can work something out?

[ZIGE]

Originally Posted by daleski75

Where are you from Zige? as I have a adapter to update it so maybe we can work something out?

thanks buddy, but i live in lebanon and i already bought the adapter last night.. how much did you pay for yours? just curious.

[daleski75]

Originally Posted by ZIGE

thanks buddy, but i live in lebanon and i already bought the adapter last night.. how much did you pay for yours? just curious.

I think all in all I paid £25.00 for the sim and adapter.... now I hope I get the chance to use it!

[gsmjava]

For all the prices (especially if you are in UK) best is to go to official website www.rebelsimcard.com, because they are based in UK.

Also, they are very nice people, I bought more than 100 Rebel's already from them.

Regards.