Cell Phone Unlocking in NYC?

[MJGunn]

Anyone from NYC know where I can get a nokia 3650 unlocked? I was able to pick up an at&t one cheap, but of course.....I've got t-mobile!

The "remote unlocking" that works so well for every other Nokia doesn't work for this model (of course), so I'm hoping to get it done local (I'm pretty close to NYC), and not have to send it out to the only place I know of that does it (its cross country in vegas).

 

[MJGunn]

^

 

[Pliablemoose]

Browse around in here You should be able to find someone on Howard Chui's forums/site

 

[MJGunn]

Thanks, been all over the howard forums. Unfortunately, most of the members are from Canada, so they don't really know the NYC area too well.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Do it yourself?

UK service, says they can unlock AT&T 3650

 

[MJGunn]

Like I said, as far as I've heard, the remote unlocking does not work for the at&t 3650's. I didn't see them saying differently on the site, did I (hopefully) miss it?

 

[Pliablemoose]

Sounds like a trip to Chinatown is in order for you...

I just did a search on Howard Forums, looks like a trip to Chinatown might be your best bet... They say it's ~$50.

Noticed your posts (with no replies over there too)

 

[MJGunn]

Cool, any chance you have a link to that thread?

 

[Pliablemoose]

Panasonic, but I'd be willing to bet someone in Chinatown can do it as the Nokia is so much more popular...

 

[LordRaiden]

Ok, I'm gonna play stupid here. What is phone unlocking? I've never heard of that before.

 

[MJGunn]

When you buy a phone from a company like at&t, t-mobile, verizon, etc, it is "locked" to their network, meaning you can't bring, say an at&t phone into a t-mobile store and use it on their service. When they sell you a phone for $150 (or worse yet, when they give you the "free phone"), they're actually losing money on it, because they make back more than they lose selling it to you over the course of your contract. They don't want you taking that phone, that they took a loss on selling to you, and using it on another provider. This is also the reason why every good cell phone price you ever see is "for new customers only".

Unlocking basically undoes what they do to the phone (locking it to their network), so you can use it on any provider with a compatible system.

 

[Splork]

First of all, the Nokia 3560 is a GSM phone. So, theoretically, all you have to do is put your T-mobile SIM card into the AT&T Wireless phone and it should work because all of the information is not stored in the phone, but rather on the SIM card. But, if you're refering to the phone being "locked", all you have to do is change the SOC (TDMA) code to your wireless carrier.

-sp

 

[MJGunn]

Originally posted by: Splork
First of all, the Nokia 3560 is a GSM phone. So, theoretically, all you have to do is put your T-mobile SIM card into the AT&T Wireless phone and it should work because all of the information is not stored in the phone, but rather on the SIM card

GSM phones can (and are) locked by the providers to only work with sim cards that are for their service.