If I buy an iPhone 4s in South Korea, will it work if I move to Australia?

Only SK Telecom offers unlocked iPhones in South Korea, but I believe they are a CDMA carrier. iPhones purchased from olleh are carrier locked and cannot be officially unlocked.

Buy an iPhone from a country that has factory unlocked phones - Hong Kong and Australia have unlocked iPhones.

If Korea uses the CDMA technology (code division multiple access is a network type) then you could have issues when moving to another where the GSM network is the standard. The iphone 4S has a SIM slot so you should be alble to use it in GSM counties.

MJ

You are asking questions that are local in nature. You need to contact the service providers and see if they will sell you a contract free full price iPhone that is unlocked. If Korea is using the CDMA network then it will not work on any other carriers network. There is a slot for a micro SIM in the CDMA phones but that is so you are on your home network when overseas in GSM countries. I would not recommend purchasing a CDMA iPhone unless that is your home base.

If you move then you will have to investigate the market place of the country that you are moving.

You can check this link to understand more about the iPhone CDMA version. Just pretend that you are going to purchase a phne and you can see more option/info enabled in the web page.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone/iphone4s

MJ

If you're moving to Australia, DO NOT purchase an iPhone in South Korea.

SKT, KT sell unlocked iphone4s and use wcdma network so you can use that iphone4s in any other country.

( Iphone4 is unlocked in SKT not KT - you can unlocked KT iphone4 if you ask KT call center. It will take 2-3 business days)

SKT, KT unlocked iphone4s is the same that apple online store in USA unlocked iphone4s.

Unloked iphone4s means country,carrier free and can connect wcdma,gsm network. That is, the unlocked iphone4s can use in any contry in any carrier.

So if you buy iphone4s in south korea(SKT or KT), you can use that iphone4s in australia.

Hi Jaelak,

I just bought an iPhone 4 from South Korea. It was on the SK network (I could read that in the settings>general>about>carrier). I read on the http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1937 page that it wasn't carrier locked (otherwise I wouldn't have bought it)

But it doesn't work with my Australian SIM. It just gives me the following error "Only compatible SIM cards from a supported Carrier may be used to activate iPhone.... "

I asked my friend in South Korea to ask SK Telecom about unlocking, but they (he also asked KT) told him that the carrier doesn't unlock, Apple does (which I know isn't true...)

Do you know how I can get SK to unlock my phone?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3198

Australia only uses GSM, no CDMA or WCDMA. In Australia you can buy unlock iPhone or locked but the carrier will unlock for you.