iPhone Carrier Unlock – A Beginners Guide

Its been roughly five years since Apple released their sizzling Gadget iPhone. The latest version iPhone 5 is expected to roll out somewhere in mid October 2011. The most successful version was the iPhone 3GS released globally in 2008.

iPhone Carrier Unlock – A Beginners Guide

If you have an iPhone or are planning to purchase one then you might already be aware of the fact that Apple has contracts with certain Cellular Carriers (Mobile Phone Operators/Service Providers) and offers its iPhone along with a contract of the user with the cellular company. By Default iPhone is locked to work only with the certain approved cellular carriers offering it like in the United States of America iPhone only works with AT&T and Verizon while in the United Kingdom iPhone only works with O2.

Although iPhone is available factory unlocked from the Apple Apps Store but it is expensive so user’s prefer purchasing iPhone along with a contract to a cellular carrier. The problem arises where the user wants to use another cellular company services on his iPhone like in the US a lot of iPhone user’s want to activate T Mobile Services on their iPhone but the iPhone is bound to work only with AT&T.

To counter this default restriction imposed by Apple in their iPhone the hackers have found security exploits to unlock the iPhone Baseband and remove all the restrictions that confine iPhone only to the selected cell phone carrier. The procedure in which the iPhone is hacked to allow all cellular carriers work upon it is called “iPhone Carrier Unlock”. In order to carrier unlock an iPhone the user needs to jailbreak his iPhone first. You can read the introductory tutorial about jailbreaking iPhone here

iPhone Jailbreak – A Beginners Guide

iPhone Carrier Unlock – Technical Explanation

Well iPhone could be thought of as a Tablet Computer with the a GSM Radio Band Modem to connect with cellular service providers. Apple have designed their iOS to segregate the functions of Computer part of their iPhone and the GSM Radio Band. Actually computer part of the iPhone iOS is called iPhone firmware, iPhone firmware performs tasks like connecting to wi-fi or 3g internet, running apps like wordpress, twitter etc. The GSM Modem is used to acquire the services of cellular carriers like AT&T, O2, Verizon etc.

iPhone iOS Baseband

The part of the iOS Operating System that controls GSM Radio band is called iOS Baseband. when we talk about Jailbreak iPhone we actually hack the iOS firmware whilst when we speak about carrier Unlock iPhone then we hack iOS Baseband to use SIM of another unsupported cellular service provider on our iPhone. Once Carrier Unlocked the iPhone can be used to make and receive calls, receive and send text messages, use mobile internet and other services offered by the Cellular Service Provider.

iPhone carrier Unlock Tools

In order to Carrier Unlock iPhone, the user has to first Jailbreak his iPhone using Jailbreak Tools. Once Cydia is installed the user’s can download Ultrasn0w to unlock their iPhone Baseband. When the user’s jailbreak the iPhone after upgrading iOS firmware they may use Sn0wBreeze or Pwnage Tool to preserve their baseband and continue using the unlocked iPhone.

See the Detailed Tutorial about the

Advantages and Disadvantages of iPhone Jailbreak.