iPhone 4 Carrier Help

ArchedEdge · Apr 7, 2011

Hi guys,

I bought a 32gb iPhone4 Factory Unlocked from eBay at Christmas, and used it with my network (3) until recently. I live in the UK.

I bought a brand new contract with T-Mobile, put it in the iPhone to discover that my iPhone is now apparently locked to 3, or at least, not compatible with T-Mobile.

I went into shops and was told that the iPhone may lock itself to the first network it's used with, and that I just need to reset the phone through iTunes in order to unlock it again, which I just did, and has failed.

I looked at Carrier under the settings tab and it came up with a list of carriers which not only included T-Mobile and 3, but also Vodafone, O2 and Orange. But when I look at the About tab, it says the carrier is "Three 10.0"

Is my phone just locked completely to 3 and I will never be able to use it with a new network, or am I not doing something right in order to unlock it?

Its factory number is MC605B. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Gregoris · Apr 9, 2011

my advise would be to take it into the apple store so they can do it for you, if you have tried to restore and its stayed locked to the 3 network, they can maybe replace it with another unlocked phone or sort out your current one so it can use any sim.

the ebay seller was from the uk? or where was he from?

ArchedEdge · Apr 10, 2011

Unleashed said:
my advise would be to take it into the apple store so they can do it for you, if you have tried to restore and its stayed locked to the 3 network, they can maybe replace it with another unlocked phone or sort out your current one so it can use any sim.

the ebay seller was from the uk? or where was he from?

Went to Apple store already, they've told me they can't do anything - all network issues such as lock are to be dealt with the network directly I believe

But I think 3 won't do anything for me because I didn't get the phone directly from them, and from eBay instead.

Gregoris · Apr 10, 2011

of course 3 (3..i meant to say not apple lol) wont do anything, this was a happy mistake for them and your stuck with 3, more money for them...

what firmware and baseband is the device on?

bab2010 · Apr 10, 2011

ArchedEdge said:
Went to Apple store already, they've told me they can't do anything - all network issues such as lock are to be dealt with the network directly I believe

But I think 3 won't do anything for me because I didn't get the phone directly from them, and from eBay instead.

Well if the phone is really locked to 3 network, i forsee here only one way out for you which is jailbreaking then unlocking the phone. But before you run into that, have you tried to insert another network sim card into the device and see what happen?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gregoris · Apr 10, 2011

the iphone seller could of lied and it was locked to 3 all along... is another possibility..

it could be that once you upgrade firmware you might be unlocked again, if you manually put it into dfu mode and restore

ArchedEdge · Apr 11, 2011

Unleashed said:
the iphone seller could of lied and it was locked to 3 all along... is another possibility..

it could be that once you upgrade firmware you might be unlocked again, if you manually put it into dfu mode and restore

Already factory restored it now - still locked and carrier is still Three 10.0

And since I restored it, it means that it's updated to 4.3, with new bb....so I'm just going to sell it and cut my losses

Thanks for the help guys