An unlocked phone can mean one of two things; it can be used on any network carrier or you are free to install any application on it. With the price of today’s smartphones running to several hundred dollars the phone manufacturers and the network carriers have to provide some tempting offers to get people to upgrade their phone or get the latest smartphone. The most common tactic is to offer the phone for free or at a deep discount and in return you sign up to a contract where you agree to pay a minimum amount each month. The sting in the tail is that although you get the latest phone worth hundreds of dollars, it is often locked to the carrier you took the contract out with so if you want to switch carriers or move to a pay as you go plan when the contract expires you’ll have a hard time taking your phone with you.
The quickest way to find out if your phone is locked to a network carrier is to insert a sim card from another carrier and see if you get a signal and can make and receive calls. If you can’t then you probably have a locked phone. The ‘lock’ isn’t a physical lock but a program deep within the operating system – maybe even hardcoded in to the core OS – which checks that the network carrier is valid and blocks any attempt to connect to another carrier.
It is possible, although somewhat risky, to unlock a phone either by entering a sequence of numbers from the keypad or hooking it up to a computer which has some software to erase or reprogram the core files. You won’t find any chain stores offering this service but certainly the small, individually owned cell phone stores will offer this service for a fee if you ask them. However, be warned that if you do decide to unlock your phone to be used on another carrier it probably voids the warranty on your phone and there is always the danger that it could wipe the system memory altogether and then you’ll end up with a lump of plastic no more useful than a brick.
One of the reasons you may want to get the phone unlocked, and one of the driving reasons many seek to do so is if you are travelling abroad for any length of time you want to keep your phone but use a local sim card to save on calls, messages and data transfer. A locked phone won’t give you the freedom to do this so the only alternative is to get the phone unlocked to remove the carrier checking program.
The other type of locking is the restrictions put in place by the manufacturer. The Apple iPhone is notorious for this because Steve Jobs has decided that he doesn’t want people messing with the operating system or installing unapproved applications. This has given rise to the term ‘jailbreaking’ for the iPhone and many people attempt to break free and unlock their iPhone by jailbreaking it but in doing so void their warranty and support they can get if things go wrong.
By contrast, Google’s Android phones are open source and provide the freedom and flexibility to customize anything and everything. Developers are free to develop and install any type of app which many argue makes the Android a superior operating system because there is no need to unlock it, jailbreak it or circumnavigate restrictions that have been put in place. That said though, many network carriers will try and lock the phone to their network and you may need unlocking services from a local cell phone store.
