Activate an Orange contract on an US iPhone

The US iPhone is locked to ATT. You would need to get a French iPhone to work with Orange.

Tamara wrote:
The US iPhone is locked to ATT. You would need to get a French iPhone to work with Orange.

I'm not sure this is the case. People have bought US iPhones, and brought them back to the UK, and had them activated with 02 just fine, though they needed a new SIM card from 02. So i think it should be possible in France as well, as long as you can get a new SIM from Orange (don't believe your old Orange SIM card will work on the iPhone).

I think it's the SIM card that is locked and proprietary to the carrier, not the actual handset. No doubt people will correct me if I am wrong.

Good luck with it.

Message was edited by: jia10

jia10,

Without installing a hack it probably won't work.

Even if it were to work, if the iPhone had any hardware issues, it would need to be sent back to the U.S. for hardware service.

Hope this helps,

Nathan C.

Nathan,

Well I'm pretty sure that the people I know of haven't hacked the US iPhones, and as I say, they are with the legal carrier in that (new) country, so would that count as a "hacked" iPhone, and void the warranty?

It would seem very odd if Apple had made it impossible for people not to be able to transfer their legal carriers from one country to another, should they need to move, wouldn't it?

I'd be surprised if this is the case since the phones are carrier locked to a particular provider. I don't believe a US phone would activate on the O2 network without a hack of some sort.

Even if it does, if there's a problem, the phone would need to be shipped back to the US for repair/replacement.

My understanding is that the iPhone SIM card has a "service provider lock", which makes phones work only with SIM cards provided by a particular carrier. I can take the 02 SIM card out of my iPhone and put it into another mobile (not iPhone) and it will work just fine, on the same carrier. A full SIM card lock, on the other hand, ties a SIM card to one specific phone, so if you get a new phone, you need to get a new SIM card, too. Other locks can block use abroad or with other kinds of SIM cards.

I'm no expert in this, so may be misunderstanding the situation; all I have to go on is my experience.

Message was edited by: jia10

I'm even less of an expert on SIMs. Until the iPhone, I've always had CDMA phones which don't use SIMs.

The US iPhone is locked to AT&T.

The UK iPhone is locked to O2.

The FR iPhone is locked to French Carriers.

The DE iPhone is locked to T-Mobile.

I am almost positive the above is true. They are carrier locked for a reason, it would be pretty easy for the UK to come here and buy up cheap iPhones and sell them there if it worked that way.

I think the question we are asking is whether it is the handset that is locked to the carrier in some way, or just the SIM card? If the latter, then just using a different SIM card for the (legal) carrier in the country you're moving to, would be all that is needed.

But I take you point that Apple may well have locked the handset to avoid mass buying on the US market to ship to the UK. The iPhone sells for £269 in the UK, which is about $500 USD; much more than you guys have to pay in the States, but before anyone else says it, this type of comparison is meaningless as there are many other factors to be considered.

I edited it to be clearer.

I believe it is a combination of the SIM card and the handset being locked to the carrier.

When comparing prices, you need to take into account the VAT.

The retail price for the iPhone sold in the U.S. does not include any sales/use or value added tax.

The sales tax rate where I live is 8.25% and in other locations the sales tax rate can be different. Places like NY the sales tax rate is higher.

So where I live you need to add another $33 rounding up which gets the "apples to apples" comparison $432 vs $500 or so. Exchange rates, corporate tax rates, shipping and handling and any additional expenses involved with selling the iPhone in the UK makes up the difference.

Thanks Allan; the difference in cost b/w the US and UK doesn't appear that big then.

I take it that iPhone users in the US can take their SIM card out and use it in another mobile phone with AT&T?

jia10 wrote:
I take it that iPhone users in the US can take their SIM card out and use it in another mobile phone with AT&T?

Correct.

You're welcome.

I take it that iPhone users in the US can take their SIM card out and use it in another mobile phone with AT&T?

Correct.

I've used my iPhone's SIM card with my former AT&T phone - a Razr 3x. An AT&T activated iPhone SIM card can be used with any AT&T carrier locked phone or with an unlocked GSM phone but the reverse is not possible which indicates this is hardware related.

Allan Sampson wrote:
An AT&T activated iPhone SIM card can be used with any AT&T carrier locked phone or with an unlocked GSM phone but the reverse is not possible which indicates this is hardware related.

My thoughts exactly.
Thanks again.

Message was edited by: jia10