Device Unlocking And Issues, My Take

First of all I like to clearly state that here unlocking phones or modems are meant to unlocking of the operator, not jail-breaking or rooting or hacking of the device.

Modem or handset unlocking is something which provides the user freedom to choose his operator keeping behind his old abusing & costly operator. Also as the customer pays for the device and owns the device 100% it is his decision to unlock or not, there is no space for operators.

As you unlock the device, the warranty gets void. But these modems are made in such way that these generally do not get dead easily unless you mess up the firmware and make it dead.Some people sell unlocking solutions on ebay, and interestingly Ebay deleted those stuffs tagging them illegal. Well it is not proper treatment.

Operators & Devices

Now most operators are selling modems and other devices locked with their network. Reliance, which is selling unlocked 3G modems, brought the 3G Tab locked with its GSM network. Personally I don’t like it because Reliance sold their unlocked modems more than any operators except Idea.

Idea is the king of 3G modem sales; with its 2G data offerings under Netsetter brands they sold thousands of Huawei modems. Though Idea Netsetter modems come locked, it is damn easy to unlock. Unlocking GSM modems are easy, just Google it and you will get thousands of helpful posts over the internet.

Recently I came across new Huawei E1550 as Idea Netsetter packed on 6/11 which can not unlocked with traditional methods. Nirav Soni, a popular modem unlocker informs us that:

Normally all devices firmware which compile date is after May 2010 is permanently locked to prevent unlocking even after correct unlock code input. There are some exception like E177 and E18x Series. Huawei has developed new algorithm for Unlock Code of Huawei Modems and Routers in Feb 2011. Till date any Reverser can’t find on latest firmware. Also they have locked boot loaders for changing modem firmware.

CDMA Unlocking – Little Hard to Crack

But CDMA modems are not so easy to unlock. I do not find a really good forum dedicated to CDMA modem unlock. This is mostly because of the fact CDMA networks are not available all over the globe like GSM is.

There is another problem is CDMA operators do not offer RUIM (CDMA equivalent to SIM card) based 1x or EVDO modems, all settings are kept inside the modem memory and often these modems do not have a RUIM slot. Major CDMA modem makers are ZTE and Huawei, which are Chinese as a result there are very low unlocking solutions over the market.

In extensive search, you might get CDMA unlocking done over the internet.