Hi there,
I've been far away for a while and I lost contact with all that happened in the past couple of years. I've recently bought a 2nd hand iPhone 3G as a Christmas present; the phone came locked to O2-UK but I thought that I would have been able to unlock it somehow so I went for it... well, it looks like unlocking is not easy at all.
The phone came with FW 4.2.1 installed by the original owner and I quickly downgraded to 3.1.3 in order to jailkbreak it. I did it through jailbreakme.com and that installed Cydia on the phone. To activate the phone I used an O2 SIM card that I use on an other phone.
Since my main objective was to use a Tesco SIM card, I was ready to unlock the iphone but I sadly found out about the baseband limitation. Since the phone was previously updated to 4.2.1 the baseband is now at 5.14.04.
I've read a lot around and decided not to update to 6.15.00 yet; Tesco is a Virtual Operator that uses O2 network here in the UK; I thought that I might have been lucky and their SIM card could work on an unlock O2 iphone... That was not the case... Went to a Tesco Phone Shop, tried the SIM and the "illegal SIM" message appeared... (I thought the lock would be to the O2 network but I now think that it's to O2 SIMs... strange because, reading around forums, it looks like it worked for some other people... may be it's once again related to the baseband issue)
BTW, it looks like I'm now stuck to O2 unless I decide to upgrade to 6.15.00 and then mess up the battery, the GPS and be bounded to custom firmwares from now on.
I've then checked a couple of street shops that unlock iPhones for £15; they both said they could unlock my phone. They had a quick look to the FW on (3.1.3) and said they could do it streight away but I lingered since when I mentioned I didn't want them to upgrade the baseband they didn't even know what I was talking about... They just said it's 3.1.3 we can do it.
Now question is, do they use deifferent SW to do it or they were just naive? It sounds strange to me that if they unlock it everyday they don't even know what the baseband is... What do you think about it?
And what about if I paid £15 to O2 for them to ufficially unlock it? Would it work? Why would that be different now that I have it with baseband 5.14.04... what do operators do if it's related to the SIM? Is it somehow related to the activation of the iPhone (that I still don't know exactlky what is)? And, in this case, would I need the original SIM card the phone was sold with or any SIM would do it? And finally, if they unlock it, would I still be able to keep the phone jailbroken or should I need to reset?
Sorry for being long but I want to give you the whole picture.
I guess the most important questions are: can the phone be unlocked by O2 (and stay jailbroken)? do the shops in the street use the same methods the community use (so they would fail based on the baseband) or do they do something similar to what O2 would do?
Bottom line: do you have any suggestions to make me able to use my O2-locked iPhone 3G (FW 3.1.3 manually downgraded - Baseband 5.14.04 - bootloader 6.4) with a Tesco SIM card without upgrading the baseband?
Will O2 unlock works no matter the firmware and the baseband? (so that I can then update the firmware to future release as well). And will that give me the opportunity to jailbreak the phone?
UPDATE: I've now officially unlocked though O2; an additional 15 pounds but Customer Operator said it's unlocked forever and it will stay like that even if I move up to a new version of the firmware.
Despite what is written in internet (form requires up to 14 days to unlock) I've done it through the online chat at O2 website and they did it streight away: 15 mins and the phone was unlocked (no questions if I was the owner of the original contract... just asked me my balance - you need to have at least 15 pounds on it - the IMEI and job done).
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Unlock iPhone 3G 8GB - FW 3.1.3 - BB 5.14.04 - BL 6.4
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