To Unlock My Cell Phone: Is It Legal?

My answer is ... Yes! You can unlock your cell phone.

Because you buy it and it's your phone. But it is in fact in an unlocked state.

As far as the service provider is concerned, if you are already on a plan calling and are locked with key on a contract of year 1-2, the supplier is already assured that your basic monthly engagement will reach them in any event. Thus, at least from a financial point of view, they should not have a question if you stay with their service with the SIM card distributed with you by them -- or to employ the SIM card of another supplier of GSM on the same phone.

The one-way to know if your phone is unlocked is to simply insert any active SIM card (other that that which you have already) and to see whether that functions. In a majority of case, this should function the fine right. But if the telephone shows an error message, then is locked to him.

A direct way to unlock such a telephone is simply to introduce with the keyboard a secret code -- a single number on this telephone, derived from its serial number (or of a number of IMEI). The telephones of Nokia are most receptive with this kind to unlock. For the majority of the other phones, the alternative is to rewrite the software packages (operating software) to remove the offensive lock.

Note that unlocking cannot be done with your CDMA / IDEN phones. That is, if you're on Verizon or Nextel, your service provider's system is linked directly to your phone and not the SIM card. But with providers like T-Mobile and Cingular (that use the GSM technology), the provider's system is linked to your SIM card -- the phone itself never comes into the picture.

So, unless there was some clause during your purchase that said 'This phone is the property of XYZ service provider and can't be modified or altered in any way', the phone is technically (and legally) yours. You're free to do whatever you want to do with it -- which, in this case, relates to using different SIM cards with the same phone.

And whereas it is not clear if the service provider can deliberately lock down your phone to keep you in your existing plan, it is better to maintain your to unlock codes with range of the hand, right to be sure and responsible for your choice.

More detail about unlock cell phone, it's here.