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  • From: Jeremy Portzer <jeremyp AT pobox.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Questions on unlocking cell phones for international travel
  • Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:57:48 +1000

Hi Lyman,

My suggestion is to wait until you're in England, and have it done by a local shop (the one where you buy the SIM card). If it's like Australia, which I think it is, there will be local "newsagents" that sell cell phones, prepaid SIM cards, and plans, and will be happy to unlock the phone for £10 or less. Since unlocking phones and swapping out SIM cards is much more common outside the US, these newsagents are familiar with the techniques and are unlikely to mess it up. Not sure if they'll provide a warranty for their work though.

Separate to this, I bought an el-cheapo prepaid phone and SIM for AU$30, got it unlocked for AU$10, and AU$20 worth of prepaid credit, for my parents to use while they were visiting me here in Australia for a couple of weeks. Total outlay: AU$60, about US$50 - well worth it. Again I recommend waiting until you're in Germany or England; I don't think you can get any new GSM phones this cheap in the US except online. To save money you will likely need to buy a new SIM in Germany (after leaving England), otherwise you have to get a plan capable of international roaming which is quite expensive.

--Jeremy, currently living in Sydney

Lyman Green wrote:
I am hoping to visit friends in Germany and England in the next 6
months (I'm shooting for England over the last one or two weeks of
December) and I would like to be able to purchase a SIM card for use
in my Motorola RAZR v3xx. I understand this entails me unlocking it.

Does anyone on the list have a company they trust that will not charge
me too much to have this done?

Looking on the internet I have found how to do it manually myself
(using a variety of shady software downloads) but it seems to involve
activities that may conceivably mess up my phone. For every message
on a forum saying "wow, worked great for me" I'm seeing one "my phone
won't update/function."

According to the specs, the v3xx supports:
Bands: GSM 850/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900
and further research revealed that several cellphone companies in the
UK support GSM 1800 so I believe that if I get the phone unlocked, it
should support a prepaid SIM card on that frequency.

If it proves not to be feasible to get it unlocked I'll poke around on
ebay for the cheapest GSM capable unlocked phone I can find for use
while traveling.

It looks like Nokia might be the right manufacturer for that choice -
something very simple that I would use specifically for traveling.

Any info would be appreciated!

Lyman Green






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