Iphone 3 & 4

[jcartermad]

Guys - I have an iPhone3 which came from the UK via O2. I had it unlocked in BKK and at first everything went find. My bills suddenly leapt from 350THB to 1430 THB per month on average. Also people were reporting that they had rung me but the phone was switched off. It wasn't! I also have an iPhone 4 - version 4.2.1.

I went to a local repairer in Roi-Et ref the missed calls and he said "Many operators are blocking incoming calls for customers who have a contract but purchased their phone abroad." Sounds far fetched to me. He added "If you pay the import tax then the phone works 100%." Can this be true?

Also does anyone know how or where to unlock an iPhone 4 version 4.2.1?

Apprecaite the help as I am a bit of og IT dummy. Regards John.

[la69]

Hi mate,

Sorry I can't help you with the jailbreak on your device but perhaps I can help with your bills. I got two Iphones in Sweden and brought to Thailand. They were 3gs with firmware 3.1.2 which is very good for jailbreaking. However, it seems that some (not all for some strange reason) Iphones tries to constantly connect to an internet network. If you have wifi where you spend most of your time you're ok but if you don't it will try to connect with the best option available which in most cases is gprs in Thailand. If you don't have a contract with your operator the costs can easily increase a lot. This is what happened to my and the missie's phone. She discovered as she has a habit of checking her phone bills often. In just a week or two her bill was over 2000 baht..

There are settings in your Iphone where you can shut off internet roaming but it doesn't work if you are on a domestic card, ie, you bought an uk phone, brought it to Thailand, got a local dtac or whatever card and start using that one. There are only two options I'm aware of to stop these internet connection attempts when out of wifi access:

The first and easiest is just to call your operator and have it permanently shut off. It will still work with wifi of course. The operator will claim that you with a starpoundsomething code can activate and deactivate it at will but that didn't work for me, possibly because of my phone being jailbroken.

The second is to download an app that takes care of it. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the app and I have just sold my two Iphones so I can't check it for you. The name can be something like vpn block, roaming block or something. I can look further on the net to see if I can find it again. There is a chance this one is for jailbreakable phones only though.

What this program does is that it blocks all internet access except the one you get from wifi. There is no on/off function though so you might want to start with first options and do it with your provider instead.

Good luck mate

Edited January 14, 2011 by la69

[la69]

About the unlocking of 4.2.1, I'm not sure it can be done yet. The os is jailbreakable but I don't know if there is a solution for unlocking it. You have to check with the phone selling companies that do these things. If you live in Bangkok there are plenty of them.

If you find a good one that seems knowledgeable and they tell you it can't be done yet chances are they are telling the truth =)

However, I believe these companies do "untethered" unlocking, which means you don't have to worry about it after you have unlocked, it just works as any other phone. So if they say it can't be done perhaps there may still be ways to do a "tethered" jailbreak/unlock but the drawback on that is that you need a computer to start your phone every time after you have shut it off.

If they cant help you, google on iphone unlock 4.2.1 and see what you can find. I'm sure there will be solutions for tethered jailbreaks soon enough.

Good luck!

8)

[la69]

Ok, more info:

The os 4 already has an option do shut off roaming that actually works with any other carrier as well. Something with Cellular data toggling on/off. I'm sure you can find it.

Before this option was availabe, when using turn roaming on/off it only affected the home carrier. If you got your phone in UK and used it in Thailand it would only prevent roaming with your Uk carrier. The local Thai carriers would still allow roaming thus increasing your bill unless having contract with them.

For permanent internet block I found two options: One is for jailbroken phone and is called bossprefs. It is available from Cydia, the company that provides apps for jailbroken phones. With this one you can disable 3g/edge and when doing so the phone will only get internet via wifi.

The second option, workable for os before 4.x is to click the link on this site: install this That will install an app that blocks all internet except for wifi networks. Can not toggle on/off and it may be required to have a jailbroken phone, I'm not sure.

I hope that was all 8)

[dixonbm]

Regarding the jailbreak of the iPhone 4:

A jailbreak is currently available for iOS 4.2.1. However currently only a tethered jailbreak is available for an iPhone 4. Which means that anytime the phone is rebooted it must be re-jailbroken via the jailbreak application while connected to the computer with a USB cable. They are working on a fix for this which they've said should be out soon.

The software is free online. Google search "iphone dev team".

Edited January 27, 2011 by dixonbm