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I’ll be in Chengdu for 5 weeks starting June and my US phone carrier will not unlock my iPhone 4. I assume I can get it unlocked pretty cheaply in Chengdu, yes? For a phone plan would you recommend a China Mobile SIM and pay-as-you-go cards? How do you pay for data usage there? Any tips or tricks would be most appreciated, thanks!
You definitely don’t need a contract, do you?
I assume your phone is WCDMA? So China Unicom it is, instead of China Mobile.
If you want to use 3G network, you will have to go to a China Unicom branch, to register your personal information and get a SIM card.
If 2Gnetwork is enough for you or you don’t use mobile internet at all, then just buy a pay as you go card at any place sells newspaper and magazines. You can to-up after you are out of balance.
Either way, you’ll need to get them to unlock it. WTF is with your cell company? AT&T took care of it for me over the phone- Unicom SIM installed, called AT&T via Skype, and it started working immediately.
BTW- There are websites that sell unlock codes for a few bucks. Not sure if they cover iPhone, but I have used them for Samsung.
AT&T said they will unlock my phone only after I have had it for 2 years. I have been an AT&T customer for 4+ years, but I’ve only had this iPhone 4 for 14 months. So they said I have to wait another 10 months, ridiculous. I tried several times and never got anywhere.
So to recap, 2G is for phone service only? 3G will include data plan, and for that I’ll need a China Unicom SIM card? I will need mobile Internet. Thanks again.
I think those small mobile shops on street will provide phone unlocking service, cheap, fast but illegal. Which means you will have to give up all the after sale service from AT&T. However,this seems the only way if you wanna continue using your phone, based on my knowledge.
2G, AKA GPRS, is the last generation of data exchange technology, it is able to implement both phone calling and mobile internet. Comparing to 3G, which is widely being used now, 2G has much smaller bandwidth. You can only do web surfing with it, no video call, no online video, even a clip of flash animation on web site may take forever to load.
Getting a US phone unlocked in Chengdu was pretty difficult last time I tried to do this with a friend. His phone was locked to Verizon I think and we went to the cell phone street (Taisheng Nanlu) and every place we went to said they were “sold out” of the cards that were needed to unlock US phones. I’m not very clear on how the process works, but it might be a bit of a challenge unless you go straight to a place that can definitely do this for you.
Buying a SIM card is very easy though and you will have no problem with that.
I think the difficulty of unlocking varies by carrier. I unlocked a AT&T Iphone 4S in January using this online service.
It was fast and easy. I put in my IMEI number and paid the fee. The next day they sent me an email saying my phone had been unlocked. When I plugged it into Itunes, it was factory unlocked. Problem solved.
Quote:Getting a US phone unlocked in Chengdu was pretty difficult last time I tried to do this with a friend. His phone was locked to Verizon I think and we went to the cell phone street (Taisheng Nanlu) and every place we went to said they were “sold out” of the cards that were needed to unlock US phones.I brought back a locked Sprint 4S from the states for the girlfriend and she was able to find a place that sold her one of these cards (卡贴) pretty easily. They’re also widely sold on taobao (Gevey is a widely known brand for these).
Quote:I think the difficulty of unlocking varies by carrier.Yeah I’ve heard that it’s tougher for Sprint and Verizon phones. Your iOS version also matters.
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