best approach for unactivated 3GS?

[eschlene]

I've searched for two days and I'm not really getting a sense of what I'll need to do.

I bought and am waiting to recieve a shrink-wrapped 16Gig 3GS from an e-bayer. In October, I'm planning on leaving AT&T's family plan with standard sony GSM phones. I want the iphone for ipod/voice GSM service this fall when we go to T-Mobile.

When the 3GS arrives, how can I activate it so I can at least use the ipod features and perhaps wifi surfing while I wait to switch to T-mobile. At that point, I'll need to unlock the iphone so I can use a T-mob SIM

Thanks for helping someone new to the community!

eric

[madczech]

ok most probably the iPhone you got on ebay will be on fw 3.1.3 and baseband 5.12.01 which isn't unlockable...
secondly you will need a sim (the sim to that the iPhone is locked (ATT)) to be able to activate it, after the activation you can use it as an iPod touch (everything except phone) or go ahead and jailbreak it with spirit

The unlock for this baseband (5.12.01) is only going to be released with the release of the 4.0 firmware... so you will have to wait till summer until you will be able to unlock your phone and use it with t-mobile

hope that helped

[eschlene]

Thanks madczech!

Just to be clear...

When I get the phone, assuming I can tell by the serial number it's an unlockable baseband firmware release, I'm ok to plug it into itunes to activate the ipod portion.

Now, I already have non-data att coverage. Should I use a SIM card from my existing phone? Or, I imagine there's a new sim in the box, should I use the new sim card that comes with it? I'm guessing theres a way to activate the ipod portion of the phone without activating the att service.

sorry, I'm a newbie.

eric