Unlocking my mobile

It’s a sad, sad day. My very cute Motorola V70 is now retired. I simply grew tired of having to pry off the cover in order to use the “OK” button. I am now using a Nokia phone for the first time ever.

The phone needed some unlocking so I went to http://www.cellular-unlocking.co.uk/. I’ve been trying to avoid this for as long as possible, but in the end it turned out to be painless. As every other premium number service they try to keep you on for as long as possible. A few tips:

  • The information is entered in the following order: IMEI, Phone number, Model, Network.
  • Every piece of information is read back to you, “1″ is the confirmation key. I think it’s possible to confirm before everything is read back.
  • You dont need ot enter your own phone number, but if you don’t you have to listen to another number which you then have to enter.
  • Orange is network number 8.
  • When the unlocking code is read to you it’s possible to have it repeated by pressing “2″.
  • You can choose to receive two unlock codes, in case the first one doesn’t work.
  • I found it a little difficult to hear the 4th character in the code but apparently all codes start with “#pw+”.

You have a limited number of times to enter the unlocking code, and it seems speed does matter. However, an attempt that fails because you don’t enter the characters fast enough doesn’t seem to count.

My call lasted 5:35 minutes.

One Comment

  1. therning.org/ magnus » Homecall (Pipex) and call charges on premium numbers:

    [...] I really should have posted about this months and months ago! I unlocked my phone a while back. My phone call lasted 5:35 minutes so I was expecting to be charged less than £8.20, since the charge for the premium number is £1.50 per minute. However, I was charged about £14! Several calls to Homecall’s customer service (I spent more than an hour in total on the phone with them), one call to ICSTIS, and a fax to Homecall’s billing department revealed the following: [...]

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