Anyone heard of this Unlocking process?

barryd09

friend of mine is just finished his contract with meteor on an iphone 5.

He is selling the iphone 5 to my girlfriend, he has requested the unlock from meteor who have then told him that once its unlocked by meteor and connected to itunes and then reactivated with a different networks sim that *it then becomes LOCKED to that NEW network* and then requires the new network to unlock it again in the future.

this was told to him by a rep over the phone & also in an email sent to him by meteor.
This is surely not right?

Can anyone clarify this?

Tramps Like Us

Not the case with the iphone 4 anyway. That doesnt make any sense to me and I'm inclined to say it must be wrong

barryd09

Tramps Like Us wrote: »

Not the case with the iphone 4 anyway. That doesnt make any sense to me and I'm inclined to say it must be wrong

Thanks for the reply, I have also offically unlocked & sold my old iphone 4 in the last few weeks with no issues.
I then bought an unlocked iphone 5 on ebay & am using it without any issues.
There was no need to go contacting operators or anything.

I find this very odd. Surely once a contract is completed the phone is now free to be used by any sim anywhere in the world from there on!
Would comreg have anything to say about this if its true??

barryd09

This is from apples forums, same issue/question.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5172905

One poster says what meteor is saying is complete rubbish (my personal view also) another says that apple cannot override the 'relocking' process...

So, this is a meteor problem? Or are all networks now trying to stop or limit the 2nd hand iphone market??

What use is an unlock if it relocks again?
Should this be in a contract anywhere?
Is this specific to meteor? To irish networks? (First time ive ever encountered this nonsense)

jenno86

Its Meteor talking out their arse. Once its unlocked by them requesting it from Apple you don't have to worry.

Cee-Jay-Cee

barryd09 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, I have also offically unlocked & sold my old iphone 4 in the last few weeks with no issues.

How exactly did you unlock it? I had the same issue with Three. They told me to connect yo iTunes and restore the phone then insert a non Three sim and it should work. The problem I had is I was still with Three and didn't have a non three sim and so had no way of verifying if it was unlocked. I wanted to sell it unlocked.

barryd09

CJC999 wrote: »

How exactly did you unlock it? I had the same issue with Three. They told me to connect yo iTunes and restore the phone then insert a non Three sim and it should work. The problem I had is I was still with Three and didn't have a non three sim and so had no way of verifying if it was unlocked. I wanted to sell it unlocked.

I was with Three also, finished my contract so was looking at other networks at the same time so i had several sims from other networks, i just used one of the other sims to complete the unlocking. You should do this too, Im sure your unlock is still active/applicable? Theres hardly a time limit on an unlock??

whiterebel

eMobile and Meteor talk out of their ar@es when it comes to iPhones, no matter how many times they are told.

Aquos76

I've had two iPhones unlocked from eMobile, in both cases the email stated that phone would become locked to new sim, it's bull****, both unlocked fine and will now take any networks sim

Type 17

The way iPhones are locked is that Apple maintain a database which puts each IMEI on a locked list for each network. When the phone is connected to iTunes, it checks with the database whether it is locked, and if so, to which network. Jailbreaking/unlocking is a way of fooling the phone into thinking that it has checked, and that it is not on any locked list, and is also why a jailbroken/unlocked iPhone will re-lock when it is upgraded/connected to iTunes, as the true situation is revealed by the Apple database, and it will re-lock to its original network.

When a network unlocks an iPhone for a user, they submit the IMEI to Apple, who remove it from the locked list for that network. It then doesn't appear on any list (or is on the not-locked list).

PS: Networks can only request removal of IMEIs from their own locked list, not phones that were supplied through other networks.

When a newly-unlocked phone has a SIM installed in it from another network, it checks whether it is still on its original locked list, or whether it has been removed/added to the not-locked list. If it merely has the another (or the same) SIM from the same (originally-locked) network put into it, it will not be triggered to check with the database server, and the unlock will not be complete, but it will complete whenever a different-netork SIM is next installed.

This also means that the Meteor info is wrong, as there is no way that an iPhone can request itself to be added back into the locked list of a network's SIM that is installed in it after unlocking.

Also, Apple do not take requests from networks to add a previously-unlocked/supplied SIM-free iPhone to that network's locked list, and any subsequent network would not want/need a lock anyway, as the iPhone's handset subsidy has been paid off (original contract finished), or never existed (iPhone supplied SIM-free for big bucks).

barryd09

Thank you all for all of your replys. I have spent the morning asking meteors reps on twitter to explain this so called procedure.

Here is the info they are giving to people:

This relocking happens on ALL networks
It only happens with iphones
It doesnt happen with nokias, samsungs, htc's
Its apples problem
It only happens in 'certain cases' but meteor, because of 'data protection' they cant give even the vaguest details of cases to me where this MIGHT happen

Oh and also, the email meteor send to people comes 100% from Apple

Type 17

Aquos76 wrote: »

I've had two iPhones unlocked from eMobile, in both cases the email stated that phone would become locked to new sim, it's bull****, both unlocked fine and will now take any networks sim

This is true for me too, except the iPhones were supplied through O2 Irl.
I used a mate's Vodafone SIM to complete the unlock, and then went back to my original O2 SIM (I only got them unlocked because the contract was up, and wanted to have the option of using a different SIM when I was abroad, outside the EU).

The phones did not re-lock, and I have since used them with T-Mobile USA and O2 UK SIMs.