People who live outside North America are shocked that we are shackled to our mobile service provider since phones bought through them are locked to that provider. Roaming charges with most providers are prohibitively expensive, and I’d really like to just get a local pay-as-you-go SIM card when I’m travelling so that I can use the phone cost effectively.
There’s all sorts of ways to get your phone unlocked (like those kiosks in the shopping malls), before my recent trip to Europe, I thought that I’d try the legal way: by asking Rogers to do it for me. Here’s what they said:
In your recent email, you have informed us that you would like to have your Blackberry unlocked for international use.
Unfortunately we are unable to unlock Rogers Wireless phones at any cost. If you try to unlock your phone through a third party your warranty will be voided and there is no guarantee the phone will work thereafter. Rogers offers roaming while outside of Canada to all of their wireless customers who have a compatible GSM phone with either or both the frequencies of 900/1800MHz (850/1900MHZ while within North America). You may review the charges associated with your account while roaming at www.rogers.com/roaming.
We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for choosing Rogers.
“Your warranty will be voided?” “There is no guarantee the phone will work thereafter?” As far as I know, they phone unlocking procedure consists of entering an unlock code using a standard option in my Blackberry; how could this possibly render my warranty void or my phone unworkable? Is this just another telco scam to make as much money as possible off me?
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Hi guys, just to let you know the main point of actually loosing your warranty;
1) If you use a HARD UNLOCKING service that requires a TESTPOINT or other method of unlocking your phone via a CABLE - this will void you warranty.
2) Remote Unlock with the proper SUBSIDY CODE from Rogers / Fido will not void your warranty if it’s purchased from an AUTHORIZED reseller, ie http://cellulargsm.net or http://horizonwirelessonline.com
thanks
Thanks for the tip, I’ll keep that in mind. Of course, my Blackberry is now 3 years old so I’m having upgrade feelings…
Don’t bother trying to get Rogers to release the unlocking code to you.. They’ll give you the run-around. And even if you agree to pay the $250 charge that they want, you’ll never get it.
Before my recent trip to europe, i found this website based in Vancouver that was offering remote unlocking codes for my Blackberry Curve. The cost was $25, and I got my code delivered the same day. If you plan to stay in europe for more than 1 week, unlocking your phone would be the smart thing to do. I bought a sim card for 15 euros and it lasted me the whole trip. my friend who was travelling with me didn’t unlock her phone, she kept the Rogers card and came home to a surprise of $300 in wireless roaming chargers.
i highly recommend this place to get your phone unlocked: http://www.mobile-to-go.com
They are saying that only to protect them self. You can pontentially damage your phone, if you do not get it professionally done. Basically if you take it somewhere else and they damage your phone, Rogers will not come and fix it for you. That is why I would suggest using only professional unlock solutions, like http://www.globalunlock.com
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[...] Rogers, you have to love them (or not). I use their Blackberry service (voice and data), which has good service but I find incredibly expensive when travelling: there doesn’t seem to be a good way to add US roaming onto my voice+data plan, and let’s not even talk about international. [...]
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