I have regularly ranted about my dealing with telecoms providers. Well my phone is starting to show its signs of age – I have replaced every single part (literally) except that which is locked to a Network. So I dig through the filing system and found the Tupperware box containing all of my hatred for O2 and investigated getting a new phone. Meanwhile I came across a brand new Samsung SGH-E250 that was locked to the virgin network. After a little googling I discovered a slightly corroborated post about resetting it. Gave it a go and amazingly it worked! Quite a contrast to the Nokia experience I had previously.
In summary:
Power up phone with sim half inserted. I have subsequently investigated weather this makes a difference, I think the significant part is that the phone boots without the sim so doesn’t go to the dialogue wanting an unlock code but you insert the sim (when asked) so that after the reboot in the next step the sim is present and accepted for some reason.
- Type *2767*3855# //the phone does an “E2P reset” Presumably this is EEPROM and allegedly “temporarily unlocked” after a reboot
- Type *7465625*638*00000000*00000000# //The phone responds with “network lock personalised”
- Type #7465625*638*00000000# //The phone responds with “network lock deactivated”
- *#7465625# produces a menu in the user style that displays all the locks.
This worked well for me other people have reported Rodger their phones with it. As per usual no guarantees, don’t come complaining if badness occurs.
As an aside, the first time got on the O2 network, my settings came by text, I repeated the reset but they did not come again. Presumably the provider stores the imei of the phones it has sent them too so that you don’t get annoyed by them every time you switch phones(if you do it regularly). I quite often lend my phone to people to swap their sim into so that they can get numbers as my phone is unlocked. Does this mean that the network providers have a list of all the people have met and temporarily swapped handsets with?
Phone during reset
