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FAQ: Why Should You Unlock Your Berry – $5 Off Unlocking

by Ronen Halevy on Jun 9th, 2008 at 8:05 am EST
12 Comments »
 

Hey guys, so I would first like to thank you for this great opportunity to review on these boards.

Now to start my first “column”, I will begin with WHY one should unlock their device, and what it means to “Unlock” your device.

Firstly, many carriers use the term of a “locked phone”, referring to the SIM status, this mean which providers SIM card is allowed to access the device for calling, texting etc.

Carriers lock their phones, mainly because they offer the devices at greatly reduced prices, called a subsidy price – they assume the balance of the phone will be paid over the term of the contract (2yrs, 3yrs). So a locked phone can only be used with them (that carrier).

Unlocking the device, simply means to remove the SIM restriction and this will allow any SIM card to be used on the device.

This in general will also increase the resale value, for example a locked AT&T blackberry may sell for $350 to an AT&T customer, meanwhile unlocked can be sold to anyone (Rogers or T-Mobile customer) for extra $50 or so…
As well, of course the fact that I’d the device is unlocked you may use it on any carrier, so while on vacation in Greece, you can use Vodaphone or Cosmote and save on roaming fees.

So, since this is a BerryReview, I will instruct how to check if your berry is locked or unlocked:

Go to advanced options, SIM card, type mepd (meppd on a pearl) you won’t see as you type – a hidden menu will open displaying locks status – if Network says disabled its unlocked, if it says Active its locked

Mepd-lockedMepd-unlocked

To help you with unlocking your Berry we have hooked up with HorizonWireless to offer you $5 off all unlocking fees. Just go www.horizonwirelessonline.com and use the discount code – breview – and save $5.00 off the current special prices.

Thanks, and stay tuned to more…

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 and is filed under BlackBerry FAQ.
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12 Comments to “FAQ: Why Should You Unlock Your Berry – $5 Off Unlocking”

  1. Posted by: Randy R.
    June 9, 2008 at 8:17 am EST

    As of right now this is better than sex (only right now..) lol. Thanks a lot Breview.

  2. Posted by: Ron
    June 9, 2008 at 8:27 am EST

    Does anyone know if this will affect anything if I should need to return my BB (i.e., it stops working, malfunctions, etc.) or any support that I may have with my carrier?

  3. Posted by: Nikolaus
    June 9, 2008 at 11:04 am EST

    My wife and I both got T-Mo 8320s. We unlocked both of them for free by asking T-Mo since we were going out of the country. On the trip her external speaker stopped working. Once we got back home I called T-Mo, they did some trouble shooting with me, and sent a new 8320 to replace the broken one. The fact that is had been unlocked (by T-Mo) never even came up.

  4. Posted by: Randy R.
    June 9, 2008 at 11:37 am EST

    How long have you been a customer with tmo? I think that played a factor, if your new to TM they wont allow that until like 3 months into the service, to my knowledge at least.

  5. Posted by: S. Hughes
    June 9, 2008 at 12:24 pm EST

    I have a sprint 8830. Sprint does not use sim cards and when I went to the sim card menu, everything said unknown. Is it unlocked or not?

  6. Posted by: Randy R.
    June 9, 2008 at 1:12 pm EST

    Thats weird I’ve always thought all Sprint Phones Use sim cards.

  7. Posted by: TD
    June 9, 2008 at 4:37 pm EST

    I have a Verizon Curve – SIM card is not on the options or advanced options menu.

  8. Posted by: Randy R.
    June 9, 2008 at 11:48 pm EST

    Verizon phones are locked to the CDMA network isnt it?

  9. Posted by: TD
    June 10, 2008 at 9:20 am EST

    OK – since I know zero about this I Googled it. It looks like CDMA phones do not use SIM cards? Is that correct? Here is a quote:

    “About CDMA Unlocking & Reprogramming: Unlike GSM cell phones, unlocking the phone is not enough to make it work because instead of using a sim card, the data used to connect to a network is stored internally. Some CDMA providers put a lock on their phone to block it from being programmed. This is referred to as a SPC. (Service Provider Code) The first step to reprogramming a phone is determining if it has a 6 digit SPC lock code set on it or not. If it does have an SPC lock then it must be read and re-written to 000000 before it can be reprogrammed. After a CDMA phone is unlocked or if it doesn’t have an SPC lock it can be reprogrammed by writing a script to the phone that installs a new PRL file.”

  10. Posted by: Josh
    June 10, 2008 at 10:50 am EST

    That is 95% correct on CDMA not using SIM cards, except for the new multi-platform devices with both antennas.
    BUT – the 8830’s GSM portion is 900/1800 for outside north america only, and won’t serve usefull to unlock for att or tmobile.

  11. Posted by: mje5270
    June 10, 2008 at 2:44 pm EST

    After reading this article, I decided to get the unlock code for my Curve. Not planning to travel overseas anytime soon; I just wanted to know what my code was. My carrier is T-Mobile and I received the code earlier today. Where do folks buy SIM cards (I’d need an AT&T card, I’m guessing) and what’s the average price for one? I saw that they can be bought on eBay, but I’m unsure how reputable that practice is. Also, I read a lot about people buying prepaid SIMs. What’s that about? Is the principle behind them similar to a calling card or something?

  12. Posted by: HypnoticEyez
    June 23, 2008 at 11:11 pm EST

    I bought T-Mobile and AT&T sim cards for .25 each and they work fine.