please resolve iPhone unlocking to all network question

redmax

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Hi

I have been receiving conflicting advice and I have decided to come where I'll get a straight answer.

basically...

I manage the mobile phones for our business.
We recently renewed our contract (jan 14) after the previous 2 yr deal with T-Mobile expired. We were moved to EE and provided with 9 new handsets a mix of iPhone 5 and galaxy S4.

I now have 7 iPhone 4s all wiped and reset and ready to sell.
I want to sell them unlocked to any network but the guy at EE told me this is not possible.

He said that they can notify Apple to update their IMEI database that the handsets are released from EE network but to complete the process I will have to connect each handset to iTunes and then insert a non-EE SIM. As soon as I do this then the handset will lock to that network and I'm back to the same position I'm in now but locked to say O2.

is there a legitimate way of selling the handsets network free or is the above true?

EE said i am better off selling them advertised as locked to T-Mobile. I suppose this helps their business.

I have on the other hand read that once EE notify Apple of network release then the handset becomes SIM free (unlocked to any network forever).
I dont want to take the risk of selling only for loads of grief from buyers if its not true.

Is it really this complicated?

Can someone please give me the actual truth.

Thanks
 
He said that they can notify Apple to update their IMEI database that the handsets are released from EE network but to complete the process I will have to connect each handset to iTunes and then insert a non-EE SIM. As soon as I do this then the handset will lock to that network and I'm back to the same position I'm in now but locked to say O2.

I had an iPhone on Tesco Mobile which was locked to o2 and when the contract expired I requested an unlock. I was notified when the unlock had been processed and was required to connect to iTunes with a different sim to complete the process. However, the iPhone didn't "lock" to the new sim network it was just required to complete the unlock process in iTunes. The iPhone was then completely unlocked and has been used with different network since.
 
Thanks Avi. Thats really helpful. I think as I have 7 phones to unlock I'm going to experiment with one and if it unlocks to all networks then I will do the rest.
 
Yeah I did it last month with only one problem. The first guy said that he couldnt do it cause the contracts had expired and that was that. But then I tried it again and the next dude just sorted it out for me. So persevere :)
 
Yes but that is just spoofing the current software. As soon as Apple issue an update the phone will lock to original network.
 
No it's an official unlock, doesn't matter how many times u update them, they will not re lock. Your talking about unlocking via jailbroken device, that spoofs the software.
 

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