Life in the USA: Unlock a phone?

First let me declare- I'm a very ordinary gal. I now consider myself enlightened after several years of being given no choice but to learn things I never dreamed about. Yes, I knew and somewhat had an idea about the BUZZ words and considered myself well read, kept up to speed on magazines, followed the tech regular world's tech gurus- Oprah Winfrey and when there was nothing better to do- Martha Stewart- the regular sources for where technology is headed for most folks in the USA. I kept track of what 'hot' gadget made it to Oprah's list. And then a friend requested that I look at this new thing he was working on. And why did he pick me? He had this twinkle in his eyes and a simple explanation- I was the only one in his circle of friends who was a 'regular' gal- had no clue what to do with a phone other other than make a call.

Hmmm... interesting I thought. And what exactly did he want me to do? Oh nothing much- just play around with a phone. Okkkkk.... simple enough I thought. So I agreed. I was asked what phone I had, why Sprint I answered. Yes, I had no clue that I needed to know anything beyond the fact that it was a cool red Sprint phone. Yes it was one of the latest- had browser capability- not that I knew how to or ever felt the need to go to the Internet using my phone. (Hey- I was one of the first customers TimeWarner broadband had when they were testing their broadband- so why would I ever want to do it on a phone?) I considered myself one of the early adopters of the cellphone. Owned one since 1996 (for emergency use only- now it is my primary number)

The two guys looked at me, smiled and said, "Perfect! Now check out this application and tell us how you like it.' The next thing I knew, I was given a shiny phone very unlike my Sprint one. Everything looked different. Hm.. I thought OK so this will take some getting used to. I later found out what I had in my hand was the then latest and greatest Nokia phone a N70!

What a change! The phone was great. Took good pictures, had bluetooth great recording, wonderful battery life. And I was getting these great messages from people all around the world- Canada, Turkey, Egypt, Spain, Russia, India, Pakistan! I made friends quickly and started talking to them, exchanging pictures - yes talking no more just text it was voice and oh so addicting. I gave my feedback on usage and usability but then they needed the phone back. Small company limited budget $300 phone a phone was a lot. I understood all that and very reluctantly gave the phone back.

The application did not work on my sprint phone (by now I knew my Sprint phone model - Sanyo 8300). Bummer I thought, I needed to upgrade my phone and go for the N70. Soon found out this was not as easy as it seemed. This phone was not sold in stores in the USA. I had to order it online. It would take 3 weeks to come in.

I had researched and found that the then Cingular would support the phone so I called them. Well- the guy listened to my excited story about the new phone and then he simply said- he was sorry- he had never come across anyone who needed to make a non-Cingular phone work. He would need to ask someone else to help me. And then I was politely told that they could not do it. And then I was told I would need to get it 'unlocked'.

'Unlocked'? I never thought a phone needed to be unlocked- why would it be locked in the first place? This was already making me a bit nervous but I thought OK, I guess I was feeling adventurous and called the Internet site where I ordered the phone from to check if the phone was unlocked. They said no.

And then the adventure started. The phone came in. What a beauty! Now if only I could get it to work. For that it needed to be unlocked.

So now I had a phone that was useless unless unlocked. I had found that my operator won't help me unlock my phone, but a number of services were available. There were thousands of websites that could provide the code I needed (for a fee or free), plus as with most things in this very connected Web world, there was help from users in dedicated forums, and many Asian phone stores that could help.

To make things worse, I was warned that the 'code' (trick for unlocking) may not work, and the wrong code used 5 times would force my phone to a hard lock. That in mind, I did what a regular American – scared of the cell phone- stuck in my situation would do..... I looked for a place that would provide this service for me with some guarantee. That is how I found UniquePhones http://www.uniquephones.com. For $9.99 they could provide me with the code and have my phone unlocked in about 5 minutes! One catch- I needed to give them a ‘IMEI’ number.

And what on Earth was that? It is a 15 digit number that could be found under the battery or I could simply get the number by punching in *#06# on my phone.

Well, finally I was told to go to a Cingular store and ask for a 'SIM card' for my phone. I could finally get the phone to work- including getting the Internet to work - my Settings (It requires a special configuration message from the carrier- I later found out I could do this easily from the Nokia website http://www.nokiaUSA.com It was really great when they provided this service directly, but now they simply direct people to another site Wireless Data Services http://nokiags.wdsglobal.com/advanced?SiteLanguageId=118

It was a long exercise to get my phone to work- but all so very worth it! Now started my journey into the Internet using my phone.

Things have come a long way since. I use some cool applications to stay in touch and some just for fun.