Greetings ChiangMaiPudlians,

 

A few years back AIS upgraded my 2G phone to a LAVA IRIS 360 for next to nothing. I discovered last week that it is SIM LOCKED and can't use another carriers Sim card, here or abroad. 
The solution ended up being simple, but prior to that I spent a heap of time on the internet trying to solve it with no luck unless you are willing to fork out $$$$, downloaded heaps of different MTK apps from google playstore that could supposedly unlock it.....but none of them could.
Anyhow, after pulling out most of my little remaining hair, I took a drive to the LAVA service centre on the off chance they could unlock it...and they did....had to leave the phone with them for a couple of hours and they basically installed a new unlocked version of the same phone......lose all data stored on phone but that wasn't a problem for me as most of mine was stored in the memory card......oh yeah, and it was FREE. Yeah baby. Thank you LAVA.

 

So anyone else with this same problem, try contacting your phone manufacturers service centre.

 

The Lava Service Centre in CM is at the Star Avenue Superhighway  in a shop house next to McDonalds.

 

How to check if your Phone is Sim Locked (for Android), go to settings > about phone > Build number. My previous version had the words "simme_lock" as part of the build number, now it doesn't.

I hope this can help some people out. Make a back up of your data prior if required.

Cheers,

I had a similar problem last week but in Thailand. You need to have the system generate a PUK code which you input and then reset the password. I went to the local  AIS service outlet and the clerk said she fixed it, but it locked again the next day. I went to a different AIS center. It was reset, but I had to provide my new passport info, as my old passport that I had given when I did the upgrade like you was replaced 2 years ago. It cost me nothing.

I have multiple phones, and yes I too despise the cheap Lava from China with the Indian bugware, err software. It's not like I need the embedded link to the Times of India.