Locked Phone Question
 

A pal of mine has recently bought a second hand Blackberry 8900 but it is locked and he asked me to help him unlock it.

When you start the phone up it has a 02 splash screen but when looking in Mobile Network in options it says Vodaphone, so which is it locked to as this is confusing me totally?

Hope someone can help.

BK

O2 is the original carrier it would be locked to.
However, if it is displaying vodafone, which will be the carrier of the sim card, it would suggest its already unlocked; unless calls cannot be made.

Hi MidnightDraven, with no sim card in it the network shows Vodaphone and puting a sim in comes up invalid so the phone cannot be used.
I did wonder if maybe phone companies use each others networks if they don't have a phone mast for their own network and i do know vodaphone have an aerial nearby.

BK

Removed.

ah, that makes it more interesting.
It shouldn't come up with any network without a SIM card though, it would say "insert sim card".

Yes it does say that on the home screen, but if i look in mobile network in options menu it lists network as Vodaphone.

BK

That therefore doesn't matter.
Its either been manually set to vodafone, or its merely displaying the nearest tower.

You would need to either contact O2 (if you have a friend etc who is an O2 customer) or use an unlocking site (like Horizon Wireless).

Thank you for your help MidnightDraven, that is what i thought might be the case, getting it unlocked is no problem, but just thought i would find out for definite if it was still O2 as the Vodaphone thing did confuse.

Regards

Ian

As the carrier splash screen cannot be changed (easily and not to another carrier splash screen) its a 99% bet that its still locked the splash screen carrier.

Of course, theres a 1% chance that its not; or that someone has tried unlocking it using a wrong code 10 times, and its permanently locked to the original carrier, but this is very rare.

If using an unlocking site, it doesn't matter the original carrier however, as its all related to the IMEI of the device.

The best thing to do is to find out what the MEP name is by downloading a blackberry MEP reader, then plug in your phone and the IMEI and MEP name will show up. From there you can unlock the phone with those 2 peices of info.

Thanks for that freethisberrydotcom, all done now and working.:smile:

BK