I want to unlock a Huawei E353 dongle, which I got with a Three mobile broadband plan in 2011.

A couple of days ago, I filled out the unlock device form on Three's website. Today, three sent me an email with an unlock code, but under this it says;

Steps to unlock the phone:

NB Please contact Three for further information.

The last time I phoned Three, which was last week, I was waiting in a queue for about 20 minutes. Now I have an unlock code, what steps do I need to take to unlock the dongle without paying £1+ to phone Three for further information?

You should be able to put in a non-3 SIM, start the application and it will ask for the code (it should be 8 digits).

You may need to install the generic Huawei software for that to happen, you can download it from somewhere like http://dc-files.com/files/huawei/modems/E367/ (different model but it doesn't matter). If you use the "dashboard update" then it will change the software on the dongle to the Huawei one and remove the 3 software (so it won't try to install 3connect if you plug it into a machine)

This is what I did with my E353 (although I didn't get the code from 3) and it works fine.

One thing I haven't worked out is that my dongle appears to be locked to 3G 2100 and I can't change this, it won't use GSM and it appears that the 3 version of the dongle does not support 3G 900MHz (so it won't work well on O2 or Vodafone 3G in rural areas)

If it was 3 branded, it may only have a 2100 antenna to save manufacturing costs.

I think this is true, there's a -1 and a -2 version. I think one of them must be the 3 exclusive version and doesn't work on anything except 3G 2100

Thanks for the advice.

Can this be done by inserting a SIM which isn't currently active, such as an EE limited edition SIM?

It shouldn't matter, but those SIMs will activate once it registers onto the network for the first time, as I understand it

I downloaded the Huawei E367 driver which you linked to.

I extracted a file sized 16.7 mb named 'Mobile Partner 16.001.06.01.500'.

Do I need to delete the 3connect software from the USB dongle then copy the file to the dongle or should I run the file from my PC?