[terryjohnson16]

I really don't care but, its interesting.

IPhone Carrier Swap 'Close' - Yahoo! News

IPhone Carrier Swap 'Close'

Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service Sat Jul 7, 3:00 PM ET

A company that unlocks cell phones in Europe said it is close to having an application that will allow customers to unlock their Apple iPhones so they can use SIM cards from carriers other than AT&T Inc. to activate the phones.

In an interview this week in New York, John McLaughlin, founder of Belfast, U.K.-based Uniquephones, said he has engineers working around the clock in several countries who are close to cracking the complex security system Apple Inc. has set up to ensure customers can only use iPhones with AT&T Wireless service.

The race by hackers to unlock iPhones has been on since the phone was released last Friday. Currently AT&T Wireless has an exclusive deal with Apple to provide service for iPhones, and customers must agree to a two-year service plan with the company. However, customers have complained that the carrier's wireless service is slow, and according to McLaughlin, there has been tremendous interest in the ability to unlock the phone.

By Sunday night, he said, more than 150,000 inquires had come in through the Web site he set up to request International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers from customer iPhones. While not everyone would volunteer their IMEI numbers, they still expressed interest in learning how to unlock their iPhones, McLaughlin said.

When the site was set up, he thought it would be an easy case of supplying unlock codes from AT&T to unlock iPhones. But sometime over the weekend after iPhones went on sale, unlock codes from AT&T for about 6,000 iPhones disappeared from the carrier's database, and McLaughlin's team also realized it would be a more complex matter than simply providing an unlock code to release iPhones from AT&T's grip.

There is at least a two-step process to unlocking an iPhone, McLaughlin said. His team has been able to unlock the activation process to the AT&T SIM card specific to an iPhone so another AT&T SIM card can work with the phone and be activated through iTunes. However, any attempt to change the firmware of an iPhone so it can support another carrier's SIM card breaks the phone, he said. The key to unlocking the phone is breaking the encryption process that protects the token sent through the iTunes activation process to an iPhone's firmware, McLaughlin believes.

Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD John" because he cracked the DVD encryption scheme, claims he's been able to unlock the iPhone beyond the activation process that requires an AT&T account, but said the device can't be used as a phone when that happens.

Even after an iPhone were unlocked, it still could only work on carrier networks that support the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network, which is what AT&T's service is based on. In the U.S., T-Mobile USA Inc. is the only major carrier on a GSM network. And there is no guarantee Apple will not lock down the phones again in a future firmware update through the iPhone synchronization process, or create a new way to unlock the next wave of iPhones they put on the market.

That is, in fact, exactly what one analyst said will happen. "I assume that someone will succeed in unlocking the iPhone," said Avi Greengart, principal analyst, mobile devices at Current Analysis Inc. "I also assume Apple will close whatever loophole is open the next time they synchronize [the software]."

It's also likely there will be complications with special features of the phone that are designed to work only on AT&T's network, such as the visual voicemail feature, he said.

Greengart said that he sympathizes with those that might want to use an iPhone with another carrier but "that's not the way the product was designed."

"Exclusive agreements are not that unusual in this industry at all," he said.

Aaron Santell, an iPhone user in New York, said that he would have preferred to use the service provider he has for his Blackberry device, Verizon Wireless, when he purchased an iPhone. But using AT&T's service is "a small price to pay" to use a device that provides such a rich user experience as the iPhone does, he said.

As one might imagine, unlocking phones is a thorny issue with carriers, which certainly don't condone it. Carriers will give users unlock codes upon request for a fee, but they don't encourage the practice.

In the U.K. and Europe third parties have been unlocking handsets for several years, although there is no law that specifically protects them, McLaughlin said. However, in the U.S. it is legal to unlock mobile handsets under an amendment to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that was passed in November 2006.

McLaughlin said that even though it's legal in the U.S. to unlock phones, he anticipates that if his team is successful, Apple may take legal action against them based on their tinkering with the firmware. "They'll probably come after us for copyright infringement," he said.

Apple did not reply to requests for comment Thursday.

McLaughlin plans to charge customers about US$49.99 for software to unlock iPhones. Even if UniquePhones is not the first to offer unlocking capability, it won't be hard for them to replicate what others have done once the encryption is cracked, he added.

[greenblood]

I heard from radios from Hong Kong that they may develop a "mod chip" for iPhone

[dsigma6]

This is great for people desperate to get an iPhone on another carrier, but at what cost?

Sign up for ATT and cancel, spending $600+$200...Then paying to get it unlocked?

Other than that, the eBay prices will surely go up, at least to the point right below the cost of buying from ATT.

[Matt]

Okay.

but who of you would get one to use on TMo?

I wouldn't No tethering and no custom ringtones ruins it for me.

[luiswtf]

I think that's stupid and pointless. If people wanted an iPhone that bad, why not just switch to AT&T.

Also, even if unlocked, like the article says, some features wouldn't work.

[Tom_in_AZ]

T-Mobile is supposed to be releasing the iPhone in Germany. AT&T/Cingulair's grip is only a US based exclusive re-sell agreement for 5 years. It doesn't stop a German T-Mobile iPhone from traveling here to the States and being used.

[darkjedi]

I tell you this, if it goes unlocked I'll get it just to spite the rest of the grinning mindless morons who stood in line to buy this at the very moment it came out. I'll hold it up high and say haha, I got this bad boy on ebay and its unlocked!!! Kiss my arse!!

[Matt]

^I was at a coffee shop here last week while they were residing my house, and there was a guy with an iPhone, and boy was he proud of it. Showing it off to random people. He showed it to me, and I said "Yeah I have seen. It's okay." He then wandered off to find someone who would go goo goo gah gah over. I swear I wanted so bad to smack him.

[darkjedi]

Originally Posted by Matt

^I was at a coffee shop here last week while they were residing my house, and there was a guy with an iPhone, and boy was he proud of it. Showing it off to random people. He showed it to me, and I said "Yeah I have seen. It's okay." He then wandered off to find someone who would go goo goo gah gah over. I swear I wanted to bad to smack him.

Well see I wouldn't be that guy, I'd be the guy who he came up too trying to show off and I'd pull it out be like "BAM!" whose big man now...he'd sulk away not feeling so important anymore and it would be awesome.

[terryjohnson16]

I would be like so what. I want to see how many of those people that switched from other carriers either by paying the ETF, or just by switching, and down in less than a year start to experience dropped calls and other crap from AT&T and want out of their contract.

Plus, imagine having the I-phone from Germany if it has 3G, and then having it here and someone says "How did you get a T-Mobile I-phone. I thought it was only for AT&T."