How to verify that a cellphone has been unlocked?

[mkrishnan]

Hi,

Kind of a random question, but is there a universal way to tell if a cellphone has been unlocked (e.g. for GSM phones)? For instance, if I call T-Mobile up and whine them out of an unlock code for my RAZR, I guess I'll know it's unlocked because I'll get a confirmation when I use the code. If there were another phone, and for whatever reason, one were not sure if it was unlocked or not, is there a generic test, short of going and getting someone's SIM who is not on that service provider (e.g. conniving a friend to let me put their AT&T SIM in my T-Mobile RAZR) and trying to see if the phone will provision?

 

[siurpeeman]

...short of going and getting someone's SIM who is not on that service provider

i'm not sure if there's a way to check to see if a phone is unlocked simply. there might be a combination of keys you might have to press, and it might be different from phone to phone. the sim card test really seems like the simplest solution.

 

[3nm]

i just use someone else's sim (different carrier than mine) to test it.

or you can always go to one of those asian phone stores and ask them to test it for you.

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks for the input... that's what I figured.

Just out of curiosity, I had found Blackberry-specific instructions to test out, since I knew my Blackberry is unlocked. I was curious if there was a more general way.

I also need to just overcome the discomfort and call T-Mo and bug them for a code for my RAZR. Has anyone done this with T-Mobile specifically? How do you go about it, in the sense of asking for sales, tech support, ....?

Speaking of random joys, I bought a Blackberry, which I received over the weekend, from another forum member. I'm really enjoying it so far. And I'm very amused that it receives Hotmail e-mail quite well, which is interesting because T-Mobile states this is impossible due to commercial issues between them and MS. I don't know if mine works because it's unlocked, or for what reason, but it does work, teehee. Every e-mail account I have, except for an old netzero.net e-mail address, works with it.