Why and How to Unlock iPhone

Why and How to Unlock iPhone

Any mobile phone should be unlocked regardless whether is contracted with certain service provider or not. In over 120 countries with mobile phone services, only 4 countries still lock the mobile phone, and US is one of these 4 countries. AT&T is the worst carrier in locking its customers' phones. In contrast, China law in 1998 did not allow any providers to lock users' mobile phone, and therefore rapidly promoted its mobile communications.

As long as the users paid his or her mobile phone, or signed contract for the committed service period in exchange for the free phone which actually he/she paid it, the mobile phone becomes the personal property. Therefore, the operators have no rights to lock it, and in most countries, it is against the law. I do not think when you buy the TV, it must be locked to Comcast or Dish network which American people will definitely not accept it.

But why people can tolerate carriers locking their mobile phone in this country? Because traditionally, mobile phone is a telecom product instead of a consumer product, and telecom industries (like tabacco industries) spend huge money in controlling the government regulations, and monopolize the mobile communication markets. However, as the global liberation of mobile communications move forward, the mobile phone is becoming the consumer product which is deemed to open its system to the end users. It is just a matter of time when US will follow every country, inlcuding very under-developed countries in Africa, to enforce unlock of each mobile phone by law.

Basically, all these problems are in the service providers, not with the vendors. The mobile phone and its SIM card itself are all designed for independent operation, and nothing is locked, especially the purpose we standardized SIM card is to support its free portability and switchability of various handphones. The GSM SIM card carries global ID, registration information with certain service provider and the user account information. Normally, SIM card is sold and controlled by the provider and the global ID is the unique number for the mobile service which is very important, such as the SSN of each people. The new technique can copy the SIM card as long as we know your global ID. So please take care of your SIM card when you travel internationally.

As I said, the mobile phone is designed to be able to support any service providers' networks without locking to any specific SIM card, as long as the air interface (or wireless transmission standard) is the same and the SIM is valid. However, the mobile phone has several functional capability for the users or service providers to limit the the use of certain approved SIMs with the phone by mostly the software control. In other words, SIMs are NEVER locked, only the Phone can be locked to specific SIMs of the service providers by software.

Back to the iPhone case, who locked iPhone? The answers are very clear: AT&T Locked the iPhone to its AT&T SIM Card only! Apple, as an iPhone Vendor, does not like to lock anything on its products unless required by the service providers.

Frankly, AT&T will kill itself by contnuing locking its iPhone because of two: users' unlcoking of iPhone is protected by law, and everyone will be able to unlock the phone very soon.

The mobile phone can be locked by checking for required global ID of the specific SIM card in the main processor's program codes or in the interrupt program codes subject to different phone models. As long as you know the processors' name, you can always read out the codes and reverse engineer the assemble codes by commercial code analyzer or user-defined development tool, such as MobiAssem 6000 which can analyse and program most GSM phones. iPhone's processor model is pretty clear (vendor within 15 miles of Apple building). You can buy the MobiAssem 6000 or similar products from Taiwan or China Shenzhen at only $500/set if you need to do business, or you can download the Simulator from some websites for personal use.

After you read out all codes, please follow the steps:

1. read-in the global ID of your SIM card. You can look at the ID print on the card or get it from the SIM reader (you can buy it on-line or just $5 in China);

2. encode the global ID based on SIM codec algorithm (you can find the codec algorithm on-line or I can encode for you by sending me your global ID if you trust me);

3. after getting your encoded ID, search it from the main program source (it can be de-assembled languages or machine codes if you are smart enough);

4. after the ID found in the program, you can either disable this check function by bypassing the codes or just change the ID;

5. use MobiAssem 6000 to re-program the processor, and you are ready to change to other SIMs of other service providers.

The current iPhone is very easy to unlock because there are too many GSM tools in the markets to help on it. The US law protects the user's right to unlock the phone, but how to unlock the phone may incur illegal issues. Please check with your lawyer before doing phone-unlock business. For most people, I suggest you to pay around $7 (RMB50) to unlock your iPhone whenever you travel to Taiwan or mainland China.

There are also several other ways to unlock your iPhone without openning your iPhone (except to get your SIM card global ID) if you are familar with AT&T network optimization, GSM O&M channel configuration or iPhone control words assignment (ControlLib), etc. Phone lock is a very simple process by the service providers, and also simple to unlock it if the law permits. As I reiterated, how to unlock the iPhone may conflict with certain laws in US, and so I always suggest you unlock it in China, and bring back to US which is totally legal.

The iPhone hardware and software architecture details will be published on-line very soon, so you can understand more on this "secret phone".

Again, this pub is for education purpose only, not intended in any way, to challenge the legal issues of the intellectual property rights, but to protect the rights of the users who paid the iPhone and iPhone services and requested to unlock the phones. I will continue to publish more information to be helpful on the protection of users' such rights.

Willie W. Lu, cwc.us
Principal Mobile Phone Architect since 1993