Hello,

This evening my son tried to purchase an unlock code for his new PAYG Orange Android Phone.

He want to take advantage of some of the better PAYG sim deals to be had from other providers.

He was told by Orange that unless the new IMEI number was registered with them for 3 months they would not give give an unlock code.

They say it is in their terms and conditions?

Is this a normal practice?

I would think so. How do they know it wasn't a criminal?

Hi Stud,

Do you mean if the phone was nicked, why does that take three months to establish?

And Orange aren't police, they should deal with the information they have to hand.

And I'm not sure what unlocking a phone has to do with stealing one?

Well from what I have read people do try to unlock barred phones and I guess phone companies have a system to deal with this.

Your son I gather just wants to change phone companies, so I guess they are just protecting their revenue. It can be difficult and a lot of people go to back street places to unlock their phones.

Its their policy. Its to discourage people from doing what your son wants to do, because it would lose them money.
They are allowed to do this.

A lot of Markets have stalls that will unlock phones for between £5-£15ish if that helps?

They have subsidised the handset & on average they will get that subsidy back from 3 months worth of top ups.

They haven't subsidised at least not to my son, he purchased the phone out right, brand new.

Basically, the phone would have cost more if orange hadn't subsidised the phone. He has brought the phone after the subsidy.

If he bought it as a PAYG phone on a UK network then it was subsidised (by a much much smaller amount than a 'free' contract phone obviously).

Which phone is it and how much did he pay? What would the same phone cost sim free?

The difference between the two prices is the amount of subsidy that Orange have put on it and would expect back in revenue.

Go to a phone shop or market and get it unlocked.It's not illegal.

What's the point in a phone company subsidising a handset that can easily (in most cases) be unlocked and used on another network? If it was impossible, or even illegal, to unlock then I could understand it.

That's how it works in other countries, pay and go handsets are very much more expensive. In this country we are obsessed with headline price.

Notice also that whilst unlocking a handset isn't illegal, if its a hardware unlock it will invalidate the warranty on the handset. (They work by bypassing or tricking the security module and so leave a trace)

Even PAYG are subsidised.

Hello,

Our son wanted a Samsung phone and found what he wanted on Gumtree.

He badgered his older brother in collecting the phone with him to be told when they arrived the phone had been sold in error.

He was however offered a choice of some others one of them being a BNIB Orange HTC Hero.

Having been shown a shop receipt and some hard bargaining he paid £150 for the Hero having mugged his brother for £30-00.

I'm pleased for him but a little envious, I've been looking at getting one myself and he got it for a good price I reckon.

The Hero is locked to Orange, he knew this, at the moment his existing phone is an Orange PAYG , he wants to take advantage of better deals and he has had some good advise off DS to this effect.

He did some web research and discovered several thing about the Orange Hero.

I hope I have this right.

Web based unlocking companies can not unlock a Orange Hero.

My understanding is HTC sell these phones to Orange, who customize them and also change the unlocking code from the original.

Some high street mobile shops can apparently unlock but the phone needs to go away for a day or two and can cost upto £35 to so.

My son tells me that he is better getting an unlock code from Orange because-------

my son discovered in the event he ever had to do a hard reset on this phone, the Orange Hero would automatically revert back to being locked to Orange again,----something I have not heard of before happening.

His thinking being he is better off buying the code from Orange, so just a question of unlocking it again with the code should he ever need to do a hard reset.

He tells me he may eventually De-brand the phone, but first has to unlock.

I told him to consider a rebel sim but he says for the extra fiver or so he might as well buy an unlock code from Orange.

When he went to purchase the code from Orange he was told the IMEI had to be registered for three months and I had not heard of this either.

My son is not on a contract with this phone, he did not buy it from an Orange shop with some kind of deal attached, the phone is not subsidized except by his brother.

It was a straight forward legit' private deal and the phone is in perfect working order.

Just that Orange won't sell him an unlocking code for three months.

Here's a comparison to illustrate legend's post -

I bought my wife a new LG Cookie handset a couple of weeks ago. I've just looked them up on Play.com, and the prices are as follows:

1. LG Cookie, SIM free £99.99 http://bit.ly/cvHtd8

2. LG Cookie, on Orange £84.99 http://bit.ly/btN4lR

So, for an extra £15, buying an LG Cookie on Play.com, you could have got that particular phone already unlocked.

I'm happy for your wife and I hope she likes her phone.

Whether the phone was bought privately or brand new from an Orange shop, at some point along the line the Hero will have been subsidised. In fairness your son got a cracking deal from the private seller. That said Orange needs to recoup the investment they made on the handset be it through yourselves or the original person who bought the phone. My advice is stick with it for 3 months and then get the unlock, Orange isn't too uncompetitive on PAYG (although I completely acknowledge it has far from the best deals either).

It is the policy of most phone networks to tie you in for a period on PAYG handsets (even if the handset was not originally on PAYG). Vodafone only let you do it after 12 months, same goes with O2 and T-Mobile I think are the same.

Hello Aye,

Yes I agree with what you write.

Yes he got a cracking deal, I could have got my hands on a couple of subsidized Nexus 1s but turned the offer down, so have been looking for a Hero.

How ever our son like the rest of our kids is resourceful and rarely accepts " nothing can be done" as an answer,---that can be a pain.

He had no school today, so he spent the morning on his PC and the phone and dammed if he did not come up with private numbers for Orange, by-passing customer services one of them being for an executive department.

He will have his unlock code in two weeks providing they can generate one,----- free of charge apparently.

He was lucky, as I can tell you from working at O2 until late last year, their policy is 12 months and then a charge of £15.

They also supply Texco Mobile Customer service and again you would have to wait 3 months with them or pay a £30 fee for the code.

Yes but he can be very persuasive, however I think someone in Orange is being very kind.

I'm not sure about the freebi code but he tells me so.

He allowed me to play with the phone today while he is at school, wow!-----but,

The Hero doesn't support blue tooth file transfers between devices, I'm not sure if he knows that?

A google search brought this up. Don't know if it's reputable. Just to mention unlocks are apparently out there.

As others have said, all PAYG phones sold by the networks are subsidised. This is why box-breaking exists.

Hello Sky,

I had to Google box- breaking, never heard that as another way of saying sim-unlocking.

The other thing is I don't accept is the logic that many phones in the UK are subsidized, we have fallen pray to a way providers and retailer want us to think.

I accept concept, research, design, production all play their part in the manufacturing of phones and their costs.

But it doesn't cost more then say £40 to manufacture even the most expensive of phones.

So the high retail costs in selling an unlocked phone is pure greed, coupled with slick marketing that creates a want in consumers to own the latestest.

You can say the same about almost any goods but we don't hear bandied about the word " subsidized " when we by a TV or a washing machine or a play station.

The only consumer goods I can think of where the word is as often used is the sale of printers and ink and regardless of what the manufactures tell us we know we are being ripped off when it comes to manufacture only ink cartridges.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the practice of sim locking a phone,---so long as it can be unlocked, more that the reason for doing so is sold to us because we apparently get the phone much cheaper then what it otherwise should be and the manufacture/service provider are some how doing us a big favor,--------bollocks.