O2 have officially announced that they will be setting the iPhone free to work on other networks. According to Pocket-Lint, the news came on the 2-year anniversary of the Apple iPhone going on sale in the United Kingdom. Customers will need to have completed the full length of their O2 contract and then contact O2 customer services to proceed in unlocking the phone.
This is good news for consumers as the rising popularity of SIM Only deals means that more and more people want to unlock their phones to take advantage of these offers. The iPhone in particular can be a very difficult phone to unlock if you are not technical, however there are 3rd party shops and websites that offer iPhone unlock services. With O2 officially allowing and unlocking iPhones this should make the process so much easier for customers and enable them to insert any sim card into their iPhone.. Unfortunately for iPhone PAYG customers, there will be a unlocking fee of £14.97.
From O2′s point of view this means that customers are now free to move to another network after there existing contract has ended and take advantage of other SIM Only deals. It may well be the case that other networks adopt a similar policy soon enough. Alternatively, this could also allow O2 to offer customers better tariffs and deals when customers ring up to unlock their phones.
It is still an annoyance that you can’t unlock your phone whilst within your contract as many people may also want to use an international sim card or have a sim card for business calls for example.
Apple have also previously warned customers not to unlock their iPhones as this will void their 1 year warranty and cause irreparable damage if they try to use it on an unauthorized network. Was this just to scare consumers? Possibly, but now that O2 have given it their backing we can only assume it will be OK.
Ultimately it is a good move for consumers and gives them more freedom as well as allowing them to take advantage of SIM Only deals, International SIM cards and PAYG SIM cards.
To unlock your iPhone visit O2 Unlock my iPhone
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