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Unlocking your BlackBerry
Posted by Joe on March 25, 2008
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Ever since the iPhone was introduced, there has been a lot said about the practice of unlocking phones. Since AT&T runs on a GSM network, and thus uses a SIM card, the phones can be unlocked — though it wasn’t easy at first. If you have a BlackBerry on the T-Mobile or AT&T network in America, you too can practice the art of unlocking.
The only problem is that it might not be free. See, you need an unlock code, and unless your carrier is nice enough to give it away for free. Depending on how long you’ve had your BlackBerry and how long you’ve been under contract. If you paid full price, without subsidy, you can probably persuade your carrier to give you the unlock code.
If that’s not the case, you can head over to a site like GSM Liberty, which sells not only unlock codes, but unlocked BlackBerrys.
After you have an unlock code, you can then begin the procedure. I’ll point you to unwir3d which actually posted procedures this morning. I guess it saves me the trouble of hunting down specific instructions. But for those of you with the 8800/8300, 8100, 8700, or a GSM BlackBerry of the 6xxx or 7xxx line, you’ll be able to find your unlocking procedure. I do not know, however, if the 8100 unlock procedure will work with the 8120. I guess there’s only one way to find out…
Any questions?
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Why would I want to unlock my blackberry if i am staying with my carrier?
Remember this is a problem only in some parts of the world. Like here in the Middle East all phones sold are unlocked. The practice of buying subsidized phone with a plan doesn’t exist. Here you buy plan and phone separately, and that’s true for Blackberry too.
dgsinclair, you would only want to unlock your BB if you were thinking about taking your BB to another carrier… or of you wanted to buy a new BB from another carrier that your carrier doesn’t have.
For instance, I bought an unlocked BB 8310 because it featured GPS but was only available though Cingular, I have T-Mobile. Hence I have a cool BB and am bound to no contracts!
P.S. I would advise anyone who is considering buying an unlocked BB via Ebay to consider the fact that there may be firewalls installed from the corporate use of the BB they are purchasing. I had firewalls on my phone which prevented me from downloading applications and it took me about 2 days to figure out how to remove them. Ugh.
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