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Posts: 284 | Thanked: 80 times | Joined on Mar 2007 @ London, UK
#31
Originally Posted by Withnail View Post
It seems the LiveChat staff have been singing from a different hymn sheet since my first conversation with them! (#15)

Thankfully I took the opportunity to email myself the transcript in case of dispute, but hope this won't be necessary.
..either that, or an N900 locked to Vodafone will be making its way onto eBay
Typical eh!

I may be able to get it even cheaper, SIM unlocked, just waiting on confirmation...
 
Posts: 27 | Thanked: 16 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Munich, Germany
#32
Originally Posted by Faz View Post
Typical eh!

I may be able to get it even cheaper, SIM unlocked, just waiting on confirmation...
Nice, looking forward to hearing the outcome!

FYI: It seems in the case of Mobile Phones Direct, buying an N900 on pre-pay with a lock is still going to be £30 cheaper than 'SIM Free'

From the Vodafone UK website:

Except for the BlackBerry Storm, we will supply a Network Unlock Code (NUC) for you if you've bought a phone from us on either pay monthly or pay as you go. A NUC allows you to use non-Vodafone SIM cards with your Vodafone phone.

If the phone is on pay as you go and over 12 months old the code will also be free of charge.
For pay as you go phones less than 12 months old a charge of £19.99 including VAT applies. The £19.99 will need to be credited to your phone before you apply for the code. Once the NUC has been issued the charge will be debited.

To get a NUC code you need to contact your customer services team.

Contact Customer Service

We will need the following information for us to process your code request -

your active Vodafone mobile number (if you don't have one you can order a free pay as you go SIM card online and can get your NUC as soon as this is registered)
your phone's serial number/ IMEI (enter *#06# into the phone to get this, or you can look on the manufacturer's sticker which is underneath the battery, it is a 15-20 digit code starting 35)
the make and model of phone or device
an alternative contact number for you
an email address for you.

If the IMEI number is kept on our systems we can give you the NUC straight away. If we don't hold the details there is a timescale of 72 hours to retrieve the code from the mobile phone manufacturer. The main exception to this is Samsung, who have a timescale of up to 16 days.
 

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#33
This just brings out one question, even if a network actually locks a handset doesnt it only cost like 3 £ to unlock it and also when a phone is actualy unlocked does it mean that all the network installed crap is outta the window.
 
Faz's Avatar
Posts: 284 | Thanked: 80 times | Joined on Mar 2007 @ London, UK
#34
Originally Posted by epoch24 View Post
This just brings out one question, even if a network actually locks a handset doesnt it only cost like 3 £ to unlock it and also when a phone is actualy unlocked does it mean that all the network installed crap is outta the window.
SIM locking and operator branding are two different things.

Symbian based Nokia phones have historically been relatively easy to remove SIM locks, as has debranding by simply amending the phone's product codes to a generic non-operator country code, then performing a normal PC based firmware update. Update app checks product code and pulls down the latest revision, overwriting any existing branded one.

No idea how this would work with the N900. Whilst most of it is open source, I remember reading somewhere that the cellular parts of the device are closed.

Last edited by Faz; 2009-09-20 at 21:54.
 

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#35
Just got word Carphone warehouse loyality confirmed today that they are getting the Nokia N900 for a mid october release. Also confirmed is the fact that it will be free on 35£ a month for a 18 month contract.
 

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#36
What are O2 like for 3G data plans? Do they have Fair Use Policies, allow tethering, allow use of a wifi hotspot network, etc?

Last edited by pelago; 2009-09-21 at 20:36.
 
Posts: 17 | Thanked: 9 times | Joined on Sep 2009
#37
Originally Posted by pelago View Post
What are O2 like for 3G data plans? Do they have Fair Use Policies, allow tethering, allow use of a wifi hotspot network, etc?
Their 3g service quite good, the Iphone sits on it so you can imagine they have beefed it up to handle most overloads. Although if you are in a rural part then I really dont know how it would fair but most big towns and cities are taken care of.

Yes they do, its 250 MB on normal and 500 MB for business, still check up what is what on ur plan.

Tetherin on iphone, I dont know but they cried devil when i mentioned it on my diamond, so I dont think you could get away with that.

They have a range of wifi hot spots but again limited to the larger cities, I am from cardiff a capital city for that matter but still wifi is a very limited, if you are in London or Birmingham on the other hand then lucky you...
 
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#38
Originally Posted by pelago View Post
What are O2 like for 3G data plans? Do they have Fair Use Policies, allow tethering, allow use of a wifi hotspot network, etc?
You can get an Unlimited Data Bolt-on to your plan for £7.50, but is restricted in some ways;

The O2 Web & Wi-Fi Bolt On allows you unlimited use of O2 UK's Edge, GPRS, 3G and HSDPA networks, The Cloud's UK Wireless LAN network and the BT Openzone UK Wireless LAN network, for personal internet use and email. All usage must be for your private, personal and non-commercial purposes.

You may not use your SIM Card in any device to allow the continuous streaming of any audio / video content, enable P2P or file sharing or use them in such a way that adversely impacts the service to other O2 customers. If O2 reasonably suspect you are not acting in accordance with this policy O2 reserves the right to impose further charges or disconnect your tariff at any time, having attempted to contact you first.
If your buying sim free and want to use O2, then the iPhone payg sim is available, where if you top up with ten pounds, you get unlimited data. Reports suggest 2-3gb is no problem, but this loop hole may be closed by O2 at any time.

These are available on ebay.
 

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#39
Originally Posted by epoch24 View Post
Their 3g service quite good, the Iphone sits on it so you can imagine they have beefed it up to handle most overloads. Although if you are in a rural part then I really dont know how it would fair but most big towns and cities are taken care of.

Yes they do, its 250 MB on normal and 500 MB for business, still check up what is what on ur plan.

Tetherin on iphone, I dont know but they cried devil when i mentioned it on my diamond, so I dont think you could get away with that.

They have a range of wifi hot spots but again limited to the larger cities, I am from cardiff a capital city for that matter but still wifi is a very limited, if you are in London or Birmingham on the other hand then lucky you...
This is not a personal dig at you, but it's definitely a dig at O2. I bought the new iphone 3GS on PAYG from O2... my intention was to use my own sim card in it all along, but when I realised I got unlimited web AND wifi hotspots free for a year, I thought to hell with it, i'll use O2. Their 2G coverage in areas where I live / work is excellent, and despite having notoriously bad 3G coverage, most areas I visted were actually covered by a full 3.5G signal... I was delighted.

A few days in to ownership, I was having troubles connecting to the web. Signal was strong, settings were correct, I started to doubt my iphone. I turned it on / off, did factory resets and restores but still no joy with internet. I called O2 to ask if there was a problem... must be the phone they said so I took it back to them for them to see. Wouldn't you just believe it, the internet worked when I took it back to the shop!!

A few days pass and the problem returns, I turn to the internet in an attempt to find a solution, I then become overwhelmed at how many people around the whole country suffering the same problem.

I had only just "joined" O2, so I just thought, oh well, a temporary problem, everything will be alright.... I was wrong, this problem seemed to become worse and worse. I ditched O2 and since using another network I have had zero problems connecting to the net.
Visit the O2 forum. this problem is still happening every few days. It's a joke. Thousands, probably even millions of very unhappy O2 iphone customers at the minute.

The thing I find most laughable in your above post is where you say "it carries the iphone so you can imagine it is quite beefed up"

lol - it should read "it carries the iphone, so dont expect to be able to use the data network when you need it most" I think that where other networks spend money on their coverage and capacity, O2 spent theirs on getting the iphone exclusive... bad move IMO.

As far as tethering goes, sure you can do it, but to do it with O2's consent will cost you (I cant remember if its £15 or £20) a month for the bolt on. There are ways around paying, but if O2 suspect you are doing it without paying, they will either charge you or cut you off. They dont like you doing it because their network is already far too overloaded
 

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#40
Originally Posted by Gadgetoid View Post
I'm surely going for an unbranded phone, and contemplating going completely SIM free but finding a decent low-minutes, high data access SIM-only deal seems to be a futile effort.
You might consider doing what I did.
Get a T-Mobile Mobile Broadband dongle and stick the SIM in your phone.
Suits me just fine - I rarely do more than 10 minutes of calls and a couple of dozen texts a per month.
But I need/use a LOT of data
So I took their Mobile-Broadband Max package @£15pm - calls cost 20p per min & texts are 10p each.
My monthly spend is about £18 for using the phone exactly how I want (little chat - lots of eMails/streaming/browsing/file transfer)
Also if I know I'm going to be doing extra data T-Mob will happily bump my account to a Max+ (=10GB data) for one month for £5 extra.

I'm using an unlocked e71 - and it tethers quite happily to my laptop & N810.
Should be a doddle to move to the N900
 

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