Iphone 3GS unlock help

James_N · 9 Nov 2014 at 16:02

Hi All,

A friend has recently given me an iphone 3GS (its actually for my mum to use as a phone and an mp3 player while in hospital).

Its locked to orange and out of contract (although I have the original orange sim).

Ive been trying for 2 days to unlock it to my mum can use her Tesco sim in it. I just get the message "The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported." message when putting new sim in"

Ive tried jailbreaking it but that hasn't seemed to work and people on eBay want more than the £20 orange want for unlocking it.

Is there any way round this or do I have to pay orange? My friend is long out of the 3GS contract and has another iphone with a different provider now, so I'm not sure how she would pay the £20 unlock, as it says if its a contract phone, it comes off the bill, but she is no longer with Orange.

Cheers
Jim

Meatball · 9 Nov 2014 at 19:48

No pay Orange for official unlock! The only problem being is you'll need to get an Orange sim and top it up £20. I'm not sure they'll unlock it immediately though as they may make you wait 6 months

.

deusexlumina · 9 Nov 2014 at 20:14

Orange may be cheapest but my experience with them was dreadful, and they were really difficult about it. I'd pay the extra for someone else to take care of it personally. The jailbreak should work btw, you sure it completed ok?

James_N · 9 Nov 2014 at 22:17

Meatball said:
No pay Orange for official unlock! The only problem being is you'll need to get an Orange sim and top it up £20. I'm not sure they'll unlock it immediately though as they may make you wait 6 months.

I think with PAYG you have to have been with them 3 months, so I'd have to wait for that

I have submitted the EE unlock request with my friends details, but my email address, so we'll see if they will unlock it (even though we have no way of paying because its no longer in contract and we don't have a PAYG sim for it.

James_N · 9 Nov 2014 at 22:17

I fancy boys said:
jailbreak should work btw, you sure it completed ok?

The jailbreak worked (I used p0sixspwn-v1.0.8, its just one click). On connecting the phone, it now says its jailbroken, but its still locked to Orange.

Avalon · 10 Nov 2014 at 11:29

Orange are an utter ball ache to deal with, especially for unlocking iPhones, I had multiple contracts with them spending a few hundred a month till this year, at every single opportunity they cocked up billing/unlocking/porting/disconnecting handsets/extending contracts without authority to do so. Compare this to o2 where you submit the details on a form and it gets done within a few days.

To do a network unlock you will need an Orange PAYG sim to unlock with Orange and to top it up with £20, they also insist on it having been on network for x months. Good luck!

Invertigo · 10 Nov 2014 at 13:49

On the other side of this, I got my 5 unlocked by Orange/EE the other day easily, filled in the online form on the EE website and it was unlocked less than 12 hours later

demonix · 10 Nov 2014 at 15:48

James_N said:
The jailbreak worked (I used p0sixspwn-v1.0.8, its just one click). On connecting the phone, it now says its jailbroken, but its still locked to Orange.

That's because jailbreaking doesn't unlock the phone to all networks.

You need a separate app to unlock the phone.

James_N · 10 Nov 2014 at 16:36

Thanks for all your help guys

I'll try the official route, if it doesn't work, I guess i'll just hand it back to my friend as its useless to me!

Tommyzz · 10 Nov 2014 at 17:02

Now its jailbroken, you should be able to find an app to unlock it for you.