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Following issue after issue and trying to deal with the horrendous customer support service, I decide the time had come to unlock my iPhone so I could finally ditch AT&T. Removing the tie between your handset and the network is all that is meant when someone refers to unlocking an iPhone. When the lock is removed from an iPhone, it can subsequently be used on any carrier's network of your choosing. Removing this network enforced lock on an iPhone is referred to as IMEI iPhone unlock . What many customers are unaware of is that a lot of carriers may well simply refuse to unlock a customers phone. If they do agree, they will have fairly stringent criteria that has to be adhered to before they will - namely, the phone must be out of contract. Only at this point will they even consider it, but for most people, that means a wait of at least 2 years.



However, one of my tech-obsessed friends recently enlightened me - this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. He used an on-line unlocker to get his 'still under contract' iPhone unlocked. Apparently the process was very simple and done remotely, so at no time was he without his phone.My friend travels a lot overseas, but always upgrades to the latest model of iPhone when it's released. As a result, he always uses a third party iPhone unlocker straight away, so he can use it on any network. I’m going to stick with my old iPhone, and not bother upgrading, but I still want to unlock it.

Just as I started looking at swapping carrier, my partners employer withdrew the benefit they had been supplying of a mobile phone. So we found ourselves looking for a second handset as well as a new carrier. After a quick check on prices, it was clear AT&T was not the cheapest for the scenario we found ourselves in. So I looked at the family and shared plans of all the major providers. By far the best deal was being offered by T-Mobile, much cheaper than AT&T, so a win for us.

My AT&T plan included unlimited domestic data and voice, but charged me for texts. The T-Mobile plan we settled on was not only $20 cheaper, it included the ability to share the plan between two phone's and everything was unlimited (including texts). How cool is that? Included in the deal was a brand new, fully featured smart phone as a second handset. Adding a second smart phone to my existing AT&T account would have cost me about $1000 a year more!

So was it difficult to swap carriers once I'd unlocked my iPhone? The answer is simple. I walked into my local T-Mobile store, explained that I wanted to open a new account with my unlocked iPhone and get a new phone for my partner. After we had picked the Samsung Galaxy as the additional phone, the clerk got me a new SIM Card, did the paper work, and in less than 15 minutes my iPhone was back up, with the same phone number, receiving emails and making calls. It was as painless a process as you could possibly imagine.

Usually, the cheapest way to use your phone internationally when travelling is buying individual SIM cards by country, then simply swapping them as you move from country to country. The only downside to this is you are continually swapping numbers. However, it is possible to get a global, pr-paid SIM card, which will work all over the globe, but enable you to keep the same number.

If you are a frequent flyer, travelling internationally a lot, here is how unlocking can help you.

Lets say for example you visit Europe on business. For around $14 you can purchase a local SIM card, which comes pre-loaded with 45 minutes of talk time, and is rechargeable. Say you're in Italy, once you have purchased the SIM you have a Italian number, all your incoming calls are free, including international, you pay the same domestic rate as Italian citizens, and international calls are really cheap - calling the U.S. cost just 13c per minute. The SIM is yours to be used again and again, can be recharged, and best of all, has no contract.

iPhone network unlock

Unlocking my iPhone was one of the best moves I've made for a long time. In two months I've already saved $80 over my old monthly cellphone spend! I used a UK based website to unlock my iPhone, a company called iUnlox , that provided a very efficient service. They process IMEI unlocks remotely, so could unlock my phone in the U.S. without me having to send it away.