[swilson85]

I live in London. I'm with O2 as a business customer and they are not at the moment allowing business customers to have iphones. Does it make sense to get an unlocked one from the US? Will it work with my O2 sim?

[Cold Warrior]

You can't buy an iPhone natively unlocked from legitimate retailers. You'd have to buy one in the gray market or from a retailer and unlock it yourself.

You might as well just buy one in London and run the unlocker yourself.

[Visnaut]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

You might as well just buy one in London and run the unlocker yourself.

Exactly. If you live somewhere where iPhones are actually sold legitimately, you're better off buying locally.

In fact, since you're with O2, you don't even need to unlock. iPhones will accept an O2 SIM without having to modify the baseband. All you need to do is "activate" it, which simply circumvents the iTunes activation process. Swap out the SIM that came with the iPhone with your current O2 SIM, grab a tool like Independence or ziphone, and find the option to activate. Jailbreaking or unlocking are completely optional in your case.

Make sure you hang on the SIM card that came with the iPhone. You'll need it once O2 allows for business customers to buy iPhones.

[swilson85]

Thanks for the reply. The question is where to I buy one in London? I thought you had to have an 02 contract even to buy one. I have an 02 contract, but as a business customer I can't use it.....

[Visnaut]

Originally Posted by swilson85 

Thanks for the reply. The question is where to I buy one in London? I thought you had to have an 02 contract even to buy one.

Common misconception. iPhones are sold at retail without contract. You tie it to a contract using iTunes when you take it home. Or in your case, use a utility like the ones linked above to circumvent iTunes.

So an Apple Retail Store is a good place to start. An O2 store or Carphone Warehouse ought to do just fine, but I have heard of cases where the sales associates in 3rd-party stores force customers to sign up for a contract in-store in order to get the commission for it. So buyer beware. No contract needed for purchase.

[cms]

Originally Posted by swilson85 

Thanks for the reply. The question is where to I buy one in London? I thought you had to have an 02 contract even to buy one. I have an 02 contract, but as a business customer I can't use it.....

Visnaut is absolutely correct. Avoid Carphone Warehouse like the plague. The store was exposed recently on Watchdog for lying about service contracts and insurance for the iPhone. I bought my iPhone direct from Apple, and signed up to the O2 iPhone contract via the initial iTunes setup process. Like you, I was an existing O2 customer, and so merely ported my number to the iPhone -- took less than 24 hours.

I think your confusion over the business customer issue is that O2 currently is not enabling business tariffs on the iPhone in the way that Crackberry does. All this means is the XYZ Company can't take a bulk contract with O2 for 2000 or so of its employees, as it can with Crackberry or other similar devices like the Samsung Blackjack. The reason O2 gives for excluding bulk business contracts at the moment is so as not to compromise the "unlimited data download" facility for consumer customers, as business users are likely to be downloading far more emails, etc., than consumer customers while using the EDGE network as opposed to wi-fi networks. I believe there are changes afoot, however, and O2 is considering its options on the lucrative business market for the iPhone, so things could well change sooner rather than later.

At the moment, as an individual user, you can use your iPhone for whatever you want, providing you pay your subscription charges as per your contract. I run my own business, and have an iPhone to send and receive my business email, make my business-related phone calls, etc. My iPhone is registered with O2 in my name, not my company name, and so everyone's happy.

The compromise for you in all of this, as far as I can make out, is that you will have to take out a separate consumer contract with O2 and probably will have to use a different number to the one you currently have on your business contract with O2, as it is unlikely they will port your business contracted number to a private line.

Hope that's all clear....! PM me if you need further advice/assistance.