unlock with bell

Only the carrier can authorize the unlock... you'll have to work that out with Bell, if possible.

no apple does ever unlock phone. you can buy unlocked phones from them but they will not unlock locked phones.

I have had the same thing happen to me

I had to move out of Canada to the US and I had Virgin Mobile as my carrier.

My phone was NOT in contract.

The phone shows the carrier as Bell (because Virgin Mobile leases their network).

I bought the phone in Dec 2010 and had to move to the US in June 11

Virgin Mobile said that they would be able to unlock in a few months so I kept my account with them (ended paying them an extra 4 months of bills for time I never used their services just so that come those months they'd unlock it because that is how they chaet you)

Come Sept 2011 they said they could not unlock and charged me for yet another month Oct 2011 to cancel my account (remember NOT in contract).

At the end of all this I ended up having paid over $600 for the phone and over $250 to Virgin for months I never used their service just because they said they'd be able to unlock in a few months.

All in all left with a phone I paid over $850 for which I cannot use anywhere. - Apple says the carrier can unlock and Bell and Virgin Mobile say they can't.

Totally screwed over by the carrier.

DO NOT GET A CONTRAT OR SMART TAB with Virgin / Bell in Canada, if you want your iphone!

Anyway between Apple sending us to the carrier and the carrier being uselss and cheats the user gets screwed 😟

I was just told something similar. I am planning a trip to South America. I will be gone for one month and the Bell international talk and text packages are crazy overpriced. ($60 for 40 minutes of calls and $60 for 10 MB of data usage). So I decided the best option would be to unlock my iphone and then buy a cheap prepaid sim card from a local carrier in South America. I soon found out this isn't possible with Bell Canada. I spoke to 3 different Bell reps today (including one from their loyalty department). This is what I was told. Currently they do not unlock Iphone4S but they are working on having that option available for customers before the end of 2012. Telus currently offers an unlocking service to their customers for $50. Another Bell rep said that if I buy out my iphone contract with them (I've been with them for 9 months out of the 36 month contract) it would cost me about $700 including taxes because of their penalty structure. If I would have purchased the phone outright and unlocked from apple 9 months ago it would have cost me around $700, so by being a loyal bell customer for 9 months I didn't get any savings off the original purchase price. She also told me that they still couldn't unlock my iphone even after I pay out the contract as Apple didn't provide them with unlocking codes. She said I would have to go to an apple store and they could unlock it there. I wonder if this is true and what would Apple charge me to do this service of unlocking an iphone that is not tied to a contract ? Has anyone tried to do this yet?

It seems like a lot of hassle and expense just to take back control of our phones and give us consumers freedom of choice. I know one thing for sure. I will never deal with Bell again due to their heavy handed approach to their customers. I wish I would have went through Telus instead, then I wouldn't have this problem. $50 and it would be solved.