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Has anybody got there phone officially unlocked by Airtel after one year, what is the procedure? One of my friend who is using a officially locked Iphone 3GS on Airtel from last one year. Today we walked into a Airtel Relationship centre to get it officially unlocked. On asking for an offical unlock as the phone is more than a year old on there network, the Store Manager behaved liked that we were talking greek. He told us there is no procedure of any unlocking. As the phone is now more than an year old the warranty on the phone is over and you are now free to get it unlocked from outside. I told him that we are asking for an official lock and not want to do a jailbreak and do an unoffical lock. He told us that he has not heard of Airtel providing any official unlock. After insisting to ask from other dept, He told us that He was 100% sure and gave us the number of Nodal office to do the escalation. The Nodal office is not operational on weekend so was not able to get any further information.

I have read on the forum that few of us have got there phone unlock from Airtel can help me to get this done. What is the correct procedure to get this done? Do you have to approach somebody apart from Airtel relationship centre to get this done. Also, how do they do it. Do they provide a code or something to you to do it or do they connect to some device which is available with them to get this done. How much time it is going to take? Any help in this regard is appreciated.

One of my friends is coming from U.S, was thinking of asking him to bring either iphone 3GS or 4G. How much do these cost in U.S. & what about the contracts?

Folks

iPhone4 bought in Singapore does it carry international warranty ?

Guys

Can anyone please tell me how much is a new iPhone 4 in Delhi or for that matter anywhere in India? I am coming to India next month and getting it for my brother for Rs 35k here in London. Is that cheap or would it be cheaper in India?

I saw some on ebay.in and they are going for between 40-50k which I think is quite a huge gap between India and UK. I'm thinking I might get 2-3 iphones and sell them in India if they are going for that price!:)

Airtel is doing a pathetic job in selling iPhones in India!

The two Airtel Relationship centers I visited in Bangalore have no clue on iPhones, no display models, they don't know what models are available, they don't have even have the price list!:Frustrati
I had to wait for 10 mins to know the price (after they called someone to find out the prices).
And the worst, iPhones are very much overpriced in India, 35K for 3GS 16GB. :Shockked:

@sachin26,

Shoot an email to Nodal officer of your region and mentione bill details, purchase date and your connection details. They would happily unlock your Airtel iphone.

You can get details from Airtel.IN

Cheers!

How much is the iPhone 4G available in U.S. without contract?
Also are the ones without contract, factory un-locked?

No they aren't, they are priced exactly the same as any other place where it is sold through the proper channel (with b&w, incl. taxes and duties; not subsidized by any carrier). The price in Singapore (without contract) is exactly the same as in India (* exchange rate). The only place one can get it cheaper is HK - the difference is <5% and it doesn't come with any warranty!

Airtel sells 3GS 32GB for ~31K.

An official carrier unlocked 16GB iPhone 4 from Singtel is Rs. 30,500 all inclusive.

Nope, it is 40k for 32GB, 35k for 16GB 3GS.

No iPhone sold anywhere in the world comes with an international warranty. The warranty is only valid in the country where it is sold (and officially at that). But they replace the phone if anything goes wrong. You have to, however, go back to the point of purchase and the phone should not have been hacked, which voids the warranty.

It is cheaper in London, but they don't sell that easily at a high price. The 32 GB sells at around 44K in the gray market. The dealer will probably offer you 4 K less.

A little bird in the know tells me that Airtel and Vodafone were originally "persuaded" by Nokia to make sure the iPhone did not sell here when launched. The attempt was successful as you can see. I have ranted and blogged about this elsewhere at the time, but if you buy an official iphone through Vodafone, you are shafted by them completely. It costs you as much as 10 - 15 times more to access the internet than if you buy a grey market iPhone and use a Vodafone sim. Go figure! (This is true even today). Airtel is a little better but their network sucks.
The Apple CEO in India lost his job over the poor performance of the iPhone in India. Official sales : 19,000 units in the first year after launch. Lowest of any country anywhere.

You can buy it without a contract (costs 700 - 800 USD) but it is still locked to AT&T. You cannot buy an unlocked phone in the US. You cannot use 3G internet in the US without AT&T even on an unlocked phone because the other GSM network (T-Mobile) has an incompatible network. You can use EDGE on T-Mobile.

HK is not cheaper. But definitely with warranty. I have a 3GS bought in HK which has been replaced once already. I have also bought the extended warranty. This is valid only in HK.
The best part about buying from HK is that the warranty is serviced by Apple and not the telecom company. They replace phones, no questions asked, unlike telecom companies which try to wriggle out of any commitments. Heard of "water damage" anybody?

Hi guys i just bought a iphone 3gs 32 gb with bill and warranty is there any way to identify if the phone is airtel one or the vodafone one as the dealer dosent have any idea, he thinks it might be either one . The part no is MC133HN/B so if anybody has an airtel iphone he might be able to tell his part no or any other method to identify as i have a airtel sim and i dont want to jailbreak the phone.Any input would be of great help.

Thanks

Took me close to a month of up and down emails lol. I was the first one to do it i guess lol.

email 121@airtel or whatever the id is. They will call you back and ask for details like serial number, imei and bill details. Once this is done wait for a week and then insert a different sim and connect to iTunes. (Last step is very imporatant). Airtel has no clue about this.

If you see the message your phone has been unlocked in iTunes, you have been freed.

If that 121 id doesn't respond, email to nodal officer of your circle.

Dont bother with customer relation center or call center. They have no clue whatsoever!

Thanks Anmol and Jaggu. Will try the nodal office route. Seems like first I need to update my phone to 4.1 to loose the jailbreak and unoffical unlock and than approach Airtel pretending that I was using the phone on there network and now they should provide me the official unlock lol:

iPhone last time I checked, is not being sold w/o contract, be it 3GS or the reception horror iPhone 4. You want me to check again let me know.

Dude thats almost double the price and still the price since its inception in India. It is a straight forward rip off. iPhone 3GS became 399$ w/o contract when iPhone 4 was lauched here. Now it is avaliable w/ contract for 99$ and iPhone 4 for 199 $ (16Gig) and 299 for (32Gig) w/ contract and contract cancellation charges are 375 $ with monthy decrease of 10$. Means if you cancel a contract after 2 months of purchase then the cancellation charge will be 355$.