Unlocking a Vodafone cellphone?

[B Gallagher]

Hello all,
I've just come back from Japan. I've got with me a Vodafone Japan Toshiba 902T cellphone. I've been told that in order to get it unlocked, I need to get in touch with Vodafone Japan (now SoftBank). I've had a look around online (as I don't really know anything about this), but everything I've found looks a bit out of my range (and I have to question the legality of it...).
Anyways, I was wondering if there was any way to get my phone unlocked through Vodafone/SoftBank officially. I've had a look on SoftBank's website, but haven't been able to find a contact email anywhere.

Can anyone tell me any information about this? Thanks.

[GomiGirl]

All cell phones purchased in japan are carrier locked and it is illegal to unlock them. Softbank will not do anything for you.

You didn't mention where you have gone back to.

[Big Booger]

I don't know about the legalities of unlocking a phone but this site:

http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=296558

seems to go over what you are trying to do.

About the legalities:

Is it legal to unlock my phone

It is your phone, isn't it? Then surely it is as legal that you unlock your phone as it is that you give it away, lose it, break it, leave it turned off, or do just about anything else with it!

Unless your phone service contract says 'this phone remains the property of us (the service provider) and you agree not to modify or alter it in any way' then there would seem to be no reason why you can't legally do anything you like with your phone, just so long as you're not attempting to defraud anyone.

It is illegal, in some countries, to change the phone's IMEI (serial number) - this is a type of what is called 'cloning' and, particularly with non-GSM phones, could enable you to then pretend to be someone else and have your airtime charged to someone else's account.

We don't provide any cloning type service and don't approve of people that do. But we do help you simply unlock a phone that belongs to you so you have freedom of choice as to which service provider you use it with.

http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/unlockingfaq.htm#4

[B Gallagher]

Thanks for that GomiGirl. I have to say I was wondering about that when everything I searched for in google brought up something-or-other hack website... Not a good sign I guess.
Ah well.. thanks for the help. Shame that Japan does this to all their phones - any idea why?

edit: Big Booger, thanks for the second link. Not knowing anything about this, it explained a lot and was a very helpful read.

Thank you both for your help.

[GomiGirl]

It is because the cost of the handsets is subsidised by yhe carrier so they need to ensure that you will be a customer for enough time for you to have paid back this "loan".

Handsets are very advanced these days and if you were to pay the full cost in one hit, you wouldn't change your handsets over very often as they are expensive. So the carrier reduces the barrier to new phone purchases by keeping the ticket price affordable but they need to make their money back from your patronage.

[Mulboyne]

All cell phones purchased in japan are carrier locked and it is illegal to unlock them.

I've heard this many time before and it has always made me wonder: what law would you be breaking if you unlocked a handset?

[Kuang_Grade]

While it likely varies from country to country, I would suspect the crux the the issue is likely related to some fine print in the service contract along the lines of "the supplied equipment is for exclusive use on the provider's network and any other use of supplied equipment is prohibited", so the breach is less likely related to the act of unlocking but rather with use on another network...but given this is a civil issue, one would imagine the worst that could happen is that your service contract would be terminated with early termination penalties activated and maybe the phone being blacklisted. However, some countries might look at unlocked phones as "unapproved" devices and see them as potentially disruptive devices and therefore illegal (ie, a phone must be locked to be approved, so therefore an unlocked phone is automatically unapproved and thefore illegal).

Likewise, some prepaid cellphone companies in the US have been working various legal angles (unlocked phones=terrorism) to protect themselves from what appears to be simply a crappy business model for prepaid phones in the US.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060911/064526.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060817/1118205.shtml

But a quick google search will pull up no shortage of folks who will sell you equipment to unlock your phone for a $30 fee or so (typically, I believe it only involves putting the phone into some sort of diagnostic mode and entering a numeric code) as well as various boards that discuss such matters. But keep in mind, while you will get basic phone service with an unlocked phone, various other functionalities may or may not work on other countries/other providers networks.

But I would defer to GomiGirl's knowledge on this matter, given that she is a Keitai Godess.

[GomiGirl]

I've heard this many time before and it has always made me wonder: what law would you be breaking if you unlocked a handset?

Yep - it is the fine print of the contract that you sign when you get a phone.. breaking a contract is the illegal part rather than a part of the criminal code.

[Mulboyne]

Yep - it is the fine print of the contract that you sign when you get a phone.. breaking a contract is the illegal part rather than a part of the criminal code.

So if you take a handset overseas is it the case that the contract with your new carrier will likely prohibit its use or rather that you would be breaking the terms of your old contract? If it is the latter then I'm not sure how a Japanese carrier could bring any action in an overseas court to enforce a local contract i.e. unlocking the phone overseas might not be an illegal act in that jurisidiction.

I'm not at all familiar with the technology or contracts involved so I could be looking at this the wrong way.

[GomiGirl]

So if you take a handset overseas is it the case that the contract with your new carrier will likely prohibit its use or rather that you would be breaking the terms of your old contract? If it is the latter then I'm not sure how a Japanese carrier could bring any action in an overseas court to enforce a local contract i.e. unlocking the phone overseas might not be an illegal act in that jurisidiction.

I'm not at all familiar with the technology or contracts involved so I could be looking at this the wrong way.

Mulboyne, I am not an expert with the carrier contracts, but what I understand it to be is that you sign the deal with the carrier for a certain time period (so that the subsisdy is paid off). If you leave the country before that time peroid is up then you need to cancel the contract with them and pay any charges etc associated with this.

If you take the phone overseas and want to use it, then you need to have a global roaming agreement so that you are still paying your dues back to the carrier but of course you are now paying much higher call charges and data fees as you are now roaming.

We FG's (sic) fall into a different category as we often do leave the country without returning back to Japan. in that case we are expected to cancel the contract and not use the phone again with another carrier. The only option is to start afresh with a new carrier, new handset and new contract in your new country.

Japanese carriers are not the only ones that do this as many have sim locked phones. this makes it hard when you are travelling and want to use say prepaid sim cards in different countries. But the carriers want you to stay with them (loyalty wise) so make it hard by sim locking the phones. From the carriers point of view this makes commercial sense, but from the users point of view it is just an added cost of moving countries.

Remember that we are a very small percentage of the mobile phone user base - most people stay put in their own country and only leave for short trips (global roaming) or hardly travel at all. Business travellers don't care about the high costs of global roaming fees as the phone is such an essential part of business these days and so it is important to keep your same number and being contactable whereever you are.

I know this hasn't been a very concise answer but the short story is that global roaming is still a fairly new part of the mobile phone landscape. Playing fields are not level and carriers will do whatever they can to guard their turf.

A note on the legality issues and jurisdiction - I am sure the carriers know there are people out there hacking the SIM locking system but it is really a small number of the entire population. However, you will not find anybody who works with the carriers (and want to stay working with them) that will provide any assistance in unlocking them. Working with the carriers is my bread and butter. I am not going jeopardise that.

[Kuang_Grade]

This wikipedia page jives with the stray bits of info I've picked up over the years and gives an overview of how various countries apparently handle it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock

Unlocking has historically had a sketchy reputation, but is becoming slightly less shady as cell phone hardware market becomes more diverse and network providers become more selfish by actually requiring manufacturers to cripple advanced features that might benefit consumers but would complicated their biz plan to suck as much money as possible out of your pockets...A phone might have EDGE or EVDO based modem capability, but the provider wants to sell you another piece hardware at on a separate big $ data plan, so they tell Moto or whoever, "you need to cripple that feature out or we're not going to offer your phone to our customers". Want to download pics from your phone to your PC via its bluetooth connection....Verizon in the US won't let you on some phones (http://www.pencomputing.com/wireless/motorolav710.html). The hardware companies are stuck...they want to make sexy phones that have a clear points of differentation but because the network providers are effectively their end customers, not the people who actually use the phone, they are at the network providers mercy when it comes to feature sets. However, some firms like Sony Ericsson will make unlocked models available for direct sale to end users if no network providers choose to offer the model, such as the W810i in the US.
http://www.buy.com/retail/Product.asp?sku=202826900&SearchEngine=CJaffiliate&Type=CJ&Keyword=202826900&Category=Comp&cjsku=202826900&adid=17662

A vast majority of folks go for the cheap phone/long contract from the providers, but there is a small but growing subgroup of phone fetish folks that really wants that sexy number only released somewhere else or a phone that 3 million other people don't have (when your mother gets a MOTO RAZR phone free with contract, how cool can your RAZR be?), and that's where unlocking issues often come into play.

[GomiGirl]

The retail price of unlocked and top end phones is very high - close to US$1,000 and hardly anybody other than the fetishists will pay that sort of money.. well I would but maybe I am a fetishist. I am fortunately to get hold of lots of demos/loaners and also handsets at the substantial developers discounts though.

It is always possible to get the vanilla versions but you do have to pay full price. All the large handset (non-japanese) makers do this. But no phone bought in Japan from a carrier will be unlocked.

Interesting though, the sim cards from Japanese FOMA or other 3G phones can be put into unlocked handsets overseas and be used on a global roaming plan - ie you keep the same number etc but the call charges are very high.

[IkemenTommy]

Interesting though, the sim cards from Japanese FOMA or other 3G phones can be put into unlocked handsets overseas and be used on a global roaming plan - ie you keep the same number etc but the call charges are very high.

Yep. There is no need to get the Docomo overseas models like their N900iG, M1000, etc to use it abroad. You can just put it in certain Nokia and Motorola brand phones (GSM as well) without any problem.

I happened to pick up some 3G-enabled LG Simpure phones at Narita last month for 2000 yen because they were having some promotion. It's a great phone for the amount I paid for, so I picked up two for work.

The most Jesus phone I have seen in years is the Sony Ericsson K800i. It's pretty much a Cybershot brand camera with a phone enabled. It works here in Japan as well with the Docomo and V.D. (or SoftBank now..) IC. The only problem is the expensive retail price...

[GomiGirl]

I happened to pick up some 3G-enabled LG Simpure phones at Narita last month for 2000 yen because they were having some promotion. It's a great phone for the amount I paid for, so I picked up two for work.

Damn Tommy - I use this phone at the moment and it is pure suckage. Buggy, bad camera, poor features and also it sometimes doesn't prioritise calls over other functions - eg I will be sending a text and a call will go straight to message bank - most suckage as these are phones dammit.

I am looking to change as soon as some other true 3G, GSM hybrids get released by DoCoMo.

[IkemenTommy]

Damn Tommy - I use this phone at the moment and it is pure suckage. Buggy, bad camera, poor features and also it sometimes doesn't prioritise calls over other functions - eg I will be sending a text and a call will go straight to message bank - most suckage as these are phones dammit.

I am looking to change as soon as some other true 3G, GSM hybrids get released by DoCoMo.

You cant blame the Simpure phone. It's KOREAN. The camera lacks the resolution but you can't complain about a 3G/GSM enabled and still be able to use in Japan at the cost of 2000 yen.

I still use the P902 and P901 as my work and private phones.

[IkemenTommy]

Question.. will a 3G phone outside of Japan work here or do I need to swap the chip into a Japan phone?

[GomiGirl]

Question.. will a 3G phone outside of Japan work here or do I need to swap the chip into a Japan phone?

Yep - it sure will. Nokias, Sony's, Motorolas etc all work fine here as long as you have a roaming contract with your carrier. The network is either manually selectable or just keep it on auto select.

You may need to change a few minor settings but just get here, turn it on first and see how you go.

Firstly though, check your carrier agreement and see which one they work with in Japan. Call costs are a bit high though and data costs will also be gross so only send around photos or files over the networks if you have to.