We often hear on iPhone forums, I want the iPhone 3G but I don’t want a new contract for 18, 24 or 36 months, what can I do?
The reasons for unwilling to sign is that the plans are sometimes well overpriced compared with for example SIM-only plans. Another reason is that people just signed for a plan with another telco provider, and it costs them money to break the signed contract. One solution is to get a Pre-Paid iPhone.
The problem is that it is not clear which Pre-Paid iPhones are offered as SIM lock free, because you want a phone where you can slip in any SIM card of any operator of your choice.
The good news is that I found a website which provides an overview of a lot of plans and prepaid offers, tap HERE to have a look. This site also tells you which Pre-paid offers are SIM lock free. The bad news for non-native dutch speakers, the site is written in Dutch.
At this moment of writing, the site reports only three operators in Europe are offering SIM lock free prepaid iPhones. That is TIM Italy (499 euro 8GB version and 569 16GB version) and Vodafone Italy (499 euro 8GB, 16GB version unknown) and Mobistar Belgium(525 euro 8GB version and 615 euro 16GB version).
We also see that the cheapest iPhone 3G is sold in Switzerland for just 323 euro but according to the dutch site, the Swissom pre-paid iPhone is SIM Locked, a pity.
Another question is, must I show an ID or Passport to buy the phone? [UPDATE: According to iPhone-ticker.de Swisscom has decided to sell only to holders of Swiss ID's. You have to show your ID or Passport or ID in the shop. Also Swiss residents may buy only 1 pre-paid iPhone per customer]
Suppose you are Canadian on holiday in Italy. Is it allowed as Canadian citizen to buy that Italian unlocked Pre-Paid iPhone in Italy? If you know the answer please leave a message. thanks.
Things will gonna change if the iPhone-Dev Team or Geohot or whoever, will succeed to ’software unlock’ the iPhone 3G with firmware 2.0. In that situation, the SIM locked iPhones from the overview, like Swisscom’s 323 euro iPhone, will be interesting for the rest of the world. So I like to know by forehand if it is possible that for example a New Zealand passport holder can go to Switzerland and buy the 323 euro iPhone without questioning.
Orginal post by wakuwaku