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Thread ID: 42848	2004-02-24 21:18:00	vodafone to telecom	yingxuan (3330)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
217888	2004-02-25 02:33:00	It's likely the phone was "found", and after the "finder" tried the most common PINs, the phone locked, and s/he is now trying to sell the phone as a "locked" phone. Very common...	Lizard (2409)
217889	2004-02-25 03:03:00	anyway to unblock the fone?	yingxuan (3330)
217890	2004-02-25 03:04:00	oh ok just found out i left out something to read.!!	yingxuan (3330)
217891	2004-02-25 03:19:00	If the GSM phone is saying "blocked" when using any SIM card (including a prepaid SIM card), and the phone was bought from overseas, then its most likely "locked" to an overseas network as a prepaid phone. Best advice is to forget it, its probably not worth trying to find anyone with the code and software to unlock it, apart from the overseas network operator its locked to, and they will be unlikely to co-operate. Usually these phones are totally unuseable here. I have seen these before and the owners given up.	godfather (25)
217892	2004-02-25 05:44:00	It's true that CDMA handsets will work overseas if you're on global roaming, but you can't connect a CDMA handset permanently to a network other than the network for which it is purchased. This is because CDMA handsets have software customised for particular networks and it is usually impractical and uneconomical to change the software. In all honesty, the CDMA system is very inflexible.	Alasta (1420)
217893	2004-02-25 05:50:00	If the phone still doesn't function with a different SIM, then the block is obviously on the phone rather than the SIM itself. SIM cards get blocked when a user incorrectly enters their PIN a certain number of times (three times, I think). A phone gets blocked if its IMEI (a unique number which identifies the handset on the network) gets blacklisted by the network provider. In the latter case, you can almost guarantee that the handset has been stolen and there is no way that you will be able to get it to work unless you can convince the network provider to unblock it (which is highly unlikely).	Alasta (1420)
217894	2004-02-26 02:13:00	The comments about unlocking phones seem to be quite accurate. As I understand it, phones are locked to a particular network in countries where there is competition and your service provider wants to stop you easily changing to their competition. There are various ways of unlocking them, but obviously that has no relevance to the GSM v CDMA issue. I think I will stay with GSM (ie Vodafone in NZ), because GSM seems works well here, and I have found it easy to roam with internationally - OK, I have only done so in Oz, but my daughter has used her GSM phone in a number of countries. This is from a 15 Sept 2003 story: "The GSM community celebrated another milestone in August as membership of the GSM Association (GSMA) broke through the 200-country barrier. New countries joining the GSM community recently include exotic locations such as the Bahamas, Kiribati, Comoros, Guatemala, Dijbouti (the 200th country), and Timor Leste (the 201st), Honduras (202) and Guyana (203). Including the most recently added countries, the GSM Association said 99.7% of the world’s population now lives in countries that have selected GSM." Not sure what the equivalent figures are for CDMA. I use a Treo 600 here, which comes out in both GSM and CDMA models for those countries that have both kinds of network. Judging by various US websites and user groups, the GSM model seems to be trouble free with their networks, but there seem to be various problems with the CDMA networks using essentially the same phone.	John H (8)
217895	2004-02-26 03:41:00	Network providers don't SIM-lock handsets to stifle competition. In many countries, network providers sell handsets at a loss on the basis that the ongoing call revenue will more than cover that loss. The purpose of SIM-locking is to prevent these subsidised handsets from being connected to another network before the original network operator have recovered their costs. Having said that, there seems to be a trend away from subsidising handsets because consumers seem to be becoming more comfortable with hire purchasing handsets. Vodafone New Zealand no longer subsidise any of their handsets and therefore all handsets purchased locally should be unlocked.	Alasta (1420)
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