iPhone as a modem? No problem!

Talk about cat and mouse games. Recently, we have seen more and more “disgruntled” AT&T iPhone users than normal, porting their service over to T-Mobile. I am constantly asked the pros and cons of unlocking an iPhone for use on other GSM networks like T-Mobile. I will do my best to address the key issues below.

The Pros…

1) Cost
The main reason people unlock their devices is to use them with other carriers to save money. An unlocked iPhone can be used with T-Mobile domestically, or overseas with a prepaid international SIM card to avoid local carrier roaming charges. In both cases, the user would save substantially, compared to using the same device on the AT&T network. T-Mobile’s iPhone rates are generally over $30 per month less. That’s $360 per year. They also do not require a mandatory data plan, as AT&T does. If you don’t require data except while using wifi, save $40-$60 per month with T-Mobile.

2) An unlocked iPhone is worth approximately $50 more than the same model locked. Also, at AT&T’s request, Apple has intentionally disabled their device functionality to prevent users from using it as a dial-up modem for their laptop. One of my technician buddies can not only unlock any iPhone, but can also enable the phone-as-a-modem feature. Unfortunately, this only works with EDGE, not 3g but is very cool nevertheless. Unlike most carriers, there is no additional $15 per month charge to do this. All that is required is having a data plan.

The Cons…

1) While both T-Mobile and AT&T employ the same wireless technology, T-Mobile’s 3g data frequencies differ. This means the iPhone will not support T-Mobile’s 3g network. It will work fine on the slower but more widely deployed GSM/EDGE however, and is far more battery efficient compared to AT&T’s 3g data network.

2) The Visual VoiceMail features does not work on the T-Mobile network.

3) Apple periodically sends iPhone upgrades. If you do one of these iPhone upgrades, they claim it could “Brick” your iPhone and render it useless. That is half true since these upgrades seem to very often do little more than give AT&T a chance to re-lock the devices back to their network. We warn our T-Mobile iPhone users not to do these upgrades. When they forget though, or if the upgrade includes beneficial features, we charge $25 to re-unlock the device after they do the upgrade.

AT&T seems to be doing everything possible to discourage the practice of unlocking iPhones. I have heard claims that unlocking can damage the device, and even void the warranty. Savvy iPhone owners know better. In fact, as a regular buyer of used iPhones for resale, I have noticed that the market value of unlocked iPhones is about $50 higher than for the same locked version.

Recently Apple even tried to enlist the US Copywright Office to help them prevent the “jailbreaking” of their iPhones. First reported by Wired.com, then cNet, Apple responded to the US Copywright Office with comments explaining that jailbreaking allows hackers to alter the iPhone’s baseband processor (officially called the BBP chip), which is the chip that enables the phone to connect to cell towers. They also insinuated that many of the service problems AT&T Network is experiencing may be caused by these phones. Even more preposterous, they claim a Jail Broken phone can be used to take down the entire network. They further claimed that “drug dealers could make their phones register anonymous by changing the unique exclusive chip identification.”

Recently, my service tech informed me that he has figured out how to re-enable the Phone-As-A-Modem feature that is available on iPhones sold outside the USA. This included the new 3G-S models. This feature will work on both AT&T and T-Mobile networks but only in GPRS/EDGE, not 3G speeds.
The process requires bringing your iPhone in and takes 30 minutes. Ask me for details by (joel@drwireless.com)

http://drwireless.com/blog/2009/08/11/iphone-as-a-modem-no-problem/