Wednesday, May 26, 2010

AT&T Offers Unlock Codes for Almost All Devices

A class action lawsuit against AT&T has resulted in settlement that is likely to please many: AT&T will provide unlock codes for almost all pre-paid and post-paid devices sold after March 12 1999.

However, the customers crying loudest for this kind of arrangement are probably iPhone customers and unfortunately, they're not covered by the policy. According to the Consumerist, the policy requires post-paid customers to have completed a minimum of 90 days of active service. Pre-paid customers must provide a detailed receipt or other proof of purchase of the handset. Further, customers who own handsets for which AT&T has an exclusive sales arrangement with a manufacturer of less than 10 months will have to wait until the 10-month period expires before they can receive an unlocking code.
That sounds very reasonable, but because the AT&T/Apple sales agreement is more than 10 months (we may not know when it ends but it's been nearly three years to date), iPhone users are still pretty much stuck with AT&T.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is nice thing to hear that AT&T is providing unlock codes. One thing i want to be clear whether they provide the code for free or they will charge for that.
Unless we have to wait for 10 months we can get the unlock code from third party online services. My friend get the code for his Blackberry 8520 phone locked to AT&T from the site http://www.wickedunlock.com/, they took about 30 minutes to get the code and their support staff was very helpful.