Unlocking a Sony Ericsson P990i?

Hi there,

Last time someone asked [1] about unlocking a Sony Ericsson P990i the answer
was "send it away and pay £25". Since several months have passed I'm
wondering if any cheaper options have become available in this time?

Google searches return quite a number of SEO spam sites offering an
unlocking code for a couple of quid, but I'm obviously suspicious of these.
Do any of them (now) work?

I found an old forum post that suggested the lock on the P990i was
particularly difficult to circumvent. I had naively assumed it would be
easy (just like in the "old days" when a stall on my local market offered
the service for a fiver) and that since I have a cable to connect the phone
to my computer I would be able to find a hack that allowed me to unlock the
P990i myself.

My provider, O2, will unlock the phone for £15, but I resent paying this
because it's them who put the lock on in the first place!! I assume OFTEL
allow them to do this?

I've already bought a replacement phone and really only want to unlock the
P990i in order to command a better price on eBay, so don't really want to
spend a lot of money on this. (But I obviously don't want to risk bricking
it, either!!)

Thanks in advance for any comments,

Stroller.



[1] http://groups.google.com/group/uk.te...c47c628f74500f

---

› See More: Unlocking a Sony Ericsson P990i?

"Stroller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news[email protected]...
> Hi there,
> Last time someone asked [1] about unlocking a Sony Ericsson P990i the
> answer
> was "send it away and pay £25". Since several months have passed I'm
> wondering if any cheaper options have become available in this time?
<snip>
>
>
Check out eBay for i-SmartSim 2008 7quid tops

Doesn't unlock the phone but defeats the networks SPlock

Steve Terry

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I found an old forum post that suggested the lock on the P990i was
> particularly difficult to circumvent. I had naively assumed it would be
> easy (just like in the "old days" when a stall on my local market offered
> the service for a fiver)

It would cost a fiver if the unlocking equipment/software cost very
little. Modern unlockin g products can costs thousands of pounds.

> My provider, O2, will unlock the phone for £15, but I resent paying this
> because it's them who put the lock on in the first place!! I assume OFTEL
> allow them to do this?

£15 is a fair price to unlock a "difficult phone" and you will be
completely safe. If market trader botches your phone you will be sorry.
With going to your operator you are purchasing the correct code.

> Thanks in advance for any comments,

Just sell it as it is.
--
Regards
Jon

Jon wrote:

>> My provider, O2, will unlock the phone for £15, but I resent paying this
>> because it's them who put the lock on in the first place!! I assume OFTEL
>> allow them to do this?
>
> £15 is a fair price to unlock a "difficult phone" and you will be
> completely safe. If market trader botches your phone you will be sorry.
> With going to your operator you are purchasing the correct code.

You're quite right that if a market trader botches your phone I'd be sorry,
but I dispute that any price is "fair" from the provider that originally
sold me the phone.

I bought a phone from O2. I did not wish or ask for it to be locked to their
network, and did it to be locked to their network. I accept that this is
practically necessary to guard against a customer opening a contract &
doing a runner with an expensive subsidised handset that they've
effectively only paid the first instalment for. But ultimately I don't see
why, when the contract is over, I should pay extra to return the handset to
what should be the default state.

Unlocking the phone is NOT difficult for O2, because they made agreements
with the manufacturer over locking & unlocking when they made a commercial
decision to sell this handset. It will be trivially easy for them to
unlock, simply requiring one of their staff to enter my IMEI number into a
webpage on the company intranet. It'll take 2 seconds and cost them
nothing, so IMO it's unreasonable for them to charge for this service.

Of course telling YOU this does nothing to resolve the situation. I think
I'll write a little missive to OFTEL / OFCOM / whatever-they're-called-
this-week expressing my displeasure. O2's staff are more than happy to spend
half an hour talking to me when I want to discuss my tariff - it does not
seem proportionate to charge £15 for two minutes of their time unlocking
the phone. Clearly O2 charge this fee in order to lock customers into their
service, or at least in order to have more handsets entering the secondhand
market which are already locked to their network. In this case it has
backfired on them, as I am a stubborn old git - I was very impressed with
the rates that I could expect on the O2 "simply" plan once my contract had
expired next month, but now I shall be looking at Orange and other
alternatives.

>> Thanks in advance for any comments,
>
> Just sell it as it is.

Yes, I think I'll do that.

I do appreciate your advice - please excuse my rant, it is not aimed at you
personally.

Stroller.

Stroller wrote:

>
> I bought a phone from O2. I did not wish or ask for it to be locked to their
> network, and did it to be locked to their network. I accept that this is
> practically necessary to guard against a customer opening a contract &
> doing a runner with an expensive subsidised handset that they've
> effectively only paid the first instalment for. But ultimately I don't see
> why, when the contract is over, I should pay extra to return the handset to
> what should be the default state.

Too true. However, it isn't necessary at all.

I complained to Oftel and Ofcom (at various times) about this and
their response in allowing it was that handsets could be illegally
exported without it.

Of course, those involved in exporting such handsets will not be put
off by locking - they are perfectly capable of reflashing the code
and switching the IMEI (legal or not).

In reality, it simply remains as a barrier to free competition.

There was a point when the EU threatened to find the practice
anti-competitive, but they have since seemed to back away from that
position.

regards, Ian

On Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:57:42 +0100, Stroller wrote:

> I've already bought a replacement phone and really only want to unlock
> the P990i in order to command a better price on eBay, so don't really
> want to spend a lot of money on this. (But I obviously don't want to
> risk bricking it, either!!)

Look at completed listings for this model on eBay, and compare prices for
O2 locked vs unlocked. That should give you an idea of how much it's
worth spending to unlock it.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ([email protected])
21:50:26 up 25 days, 26 min, 2 users, load average: 0.07, 0.04, 0.00
Convergence, n: The act of using separate DSL circuits for voice and data

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> You're quite right that if a market trader botches your phone I'd be sorry,
> but I dispute that any price is "fair" from the provider that originally
> sold me the phone.

But you knew about it when you signed up, so you can't have been that
bothered.

If you don't want to do business with an operator under their terms then
you are free to take your business elsewhere, or purchase a SIM-free
handset at full cost and get a SIM-only package.

--
Regards
Jon

alexd wrote:

> On Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:57:42 +0100, Stroller wrote:
>
>> I've already bought a replacement phone and really only want to unlock
>> the P990i in order to command a better price on eBay, so don't really
>> want to spend a lot of money on this. (But I obviously don't want to
>> risk bricking it, either!!)
>
> Look at completed listings for this model on eBay, and compare prices for
> O2 locked vs unlocked. That should give you an idea of how much it's
> worth spending to unlock it.

Yeah, I've already done that. I think the difference is about £30 - IIRC
they sell for c £50 locked, £80 unlocked.

It doesn't stop me resenting O2 for it, though.

Stroller.

Jon wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> You're quite right that if a market trader botches your phone I'd be
>> sorry, but I dispute that any price is "fair" from the provider that
>> originally sold me the phone.
>
> But you knew about it when you signed up, so you can't have been that
> bothered.

For some values of "knew". O2 certainly don't print "£15 charge for
unlocking!" as a headline when they're printing their advertising.

Sure it's probably in the small print, somewhere, but my stance is that a
customer would not reasonably anticipate this charge, as it costs O2
nothing. You're not made aware of all the small print when you phone up for
a new handset deal and once the phone has arrived there is less incentive
to study it.

> If you don't want to do business with an operator under their terms then
> you are free to take your business elsewhere, or purchase a SIM-free
> handset at full cost and get a SIM-only package.

Certainly will do. I have already bought the SIM-free phone, which is why I
plan to sell the P990.

I'll probably write O2 a *****y letter and, when they refuse to waive the
unlocking charge, find an alternative provider. As I said in my last post,
I recently found O2's "simplicity" tariffs, which I'd be eligible for once
my contract expires next month and considered them quite a bargain. I was
quite happy with these rates and had no plans to investigate other
providers. Having discovered this £15 sting I will be looking around quite
hard to find an alternative to O2, so it's their loss, really.

Stroller.

Ian Smith wrote:

> Stroller wrote:
>
>>
>> I bought a phone from O2. I did not wish or ask for it to be locked to
>> their network, and did it to be locked to their network. I accept that
>> this is practically necessary to guard against a customer opening a
>> contract & doing a runner with an expensive subsidised handset that
>> they've effectively only paid the first instalment for. But ultimately I
>> don't see why, when the contract is over, I should pay extra to return
>> the handset to what should be the default state.
>
> Too true. However, it isn't necessary at all.
>
> I complained to Oftel and Ofcom (at various times) about this and
> their response in allowing it was that handsets could be illegally
> exported without it.
>
> Of course, those involved in exporting such handsets will not be put
> off by locking - they are perfectly capable of reflashing the code
> and switching the IMEI (legal or not).

Your explanation covers exporters.

Am I right in thinking that an O2 customer who failed to complete the
payments on their contract would find the IMEI number of their phone
blocked by other UK providers (Orange, Vodaphone &c), too?

To me no argument for the network-locking of phones justifies a fee to
unlock it at contract's end. Although I take your point, that's not the one
I'll be arguing to OFCOM myself. I would imagine that OFCOM permit this as
an "administration fee", but as far as I'm concerned £15 is unreasonable
for an automated process that takes two seconds. If such a fee is permitted
for this then they might as well allow the same administration charge when
a user requests a MAC code (Migration Address Code?) from their ISP. Not
only this, but the locking is for the ISP's convenience, NOT the
customer's. The customer would be happy with an unlocked phone from day
one - we tolerate the locking for the duration of our contract, but should
not have to pay to have it undone once we have no further relationship with
the mobile provider.

Stroller.

Stroller wrote:
> Ian Smith wrote:
>
> Your explanation covers exporters.

Well, the excuse offered by Oftel/Ofcom referred exclusively to
thieves who then exported the phone.

>
> Am I right in thinking that an O2 customer who failed to complete the
> payments on their contract would find the IMEI number of their phone
> blocked by other UK providers (Orange, Vodaphone &c), too?

Yes, but as you point out this is other UK providers. I can't
believe that it is worldwide, or that it ever will be - so in
reality the 'export' excuse is just that - an excuse..

>
> To me no argument for the network-locking of phones justifies a fee to
> unlock it at contract's end. Although I take your point, that's not the one
> I'll be arguing to OFCOM myself. I would imagine that OFCOM permit this as
> an "administration fee", but as far as I'm concerned £15 is unreasonable
> for an automated process that takes two seconds.

Absolutely - and we need to remember that the phone is yours the
moment you leave the shop (notwithstanding any unfair contract terms
inserted by the network).

The best analogy I can think of is if you were offered the purchase
of a subsidised car provided you signed up for a monthly payment
petrol deal for 18 months, only to find that car has locked petrol
cap that can only be removed by the garage to prevent you using
anyone else's fuel. It is simply anti-competitive.