Have tried Settings > General > About. I'll boot into Windows later and try the sync.

The iPhone firmware image contains all of the carrier settings bundles Apple has available at the time of release. They can't "push" it to the phone if the phone doesn't know what APN to use to connect in the first place!

Carrier settings updates can be downloaded by the phone if it's running iOS 4 or later and through iTunes.


It does not control that setting - it would be ridiculous for each carrier to have to get Apple to release updated settings every time a customer became eligible/ineligible to use tethering.

While I can't explain the exact mechanism, there's nothing in the carrier settings bundle to control it. The same carrier settings file can contain both the tethering settings and the error message shown when the customer tries to use the feature when it isn't permitted on their account.

You can view a carrier settings bundle on your computer - it's just a ZIP file with XML files inside.

So why is it when I insert another network SIM into an unlocked phone does it offer to load the profile (this isn't instant and has been known to take a couple elf hours)? One with tethering and one without.

Could merely be updates or something to do with those particular networks I suppose, but seen it several times.

Someone called back (missed the call) to say they've identified some sort of problem but are yet to apply a fix and will call back again Monday to discuss it.

Have received an email and a letter today from 3. The email is from the person I have previously dealt with at EO and advises that she escalated the problem to the technical team when I first contacted her last Monday (9th of June) and that since then she has not heard anything back from them other than they're aware of a problem and are working to resolve it.

The letter explains that I can refer my problem to the 'Ombudsman Services' if I feel the need to. On the letter is listed a MSISDN number, what is this? Google suggests it should be a telephone number and the number listed is 11-digits and looks like a telephone number, I'm suspecting not though as the number given isn't mine.

"Mobile Subscriber Integrated Services Digital Network-Number".

The MSISDN together with IMSI are two important numbers used for identifying a mobile subscriber

It is their own customer reference number for you on their Home Location Register database.

Been resolved. 3 admitted fault here, they wouldn't go into specifics but told me some upgrade work affected the flow of 3G traffic on their network for some customers using iPhones, I wasn't the only one to complain about this issue.

Sometimes also known as "Mobile Station Integrated Services Digital Network"

Three quote their MSISDNs in the format: 447500123456, so just take off the 44 and replace that with a 0 and that SHOULD be your mobile number.