Lately, we’ve been receiving e-mails from both customers and non-customers asking “How do I remove the Activation Required message on my Verizon Tour or Storm”.  We have found the easiest solution for this and hope that this blog will find all of you Google searchers well.  To remove the Activation Required message from your Verizon Tour or Verizon Storm, simply follow these instructions….

Why are we giving this for free when others are charging for this service?  Being tech-junkies ourselves, we understand how frustrating it can be when 1 piece of your tech product(s) are not performing optimally.   Enjoy and we hope that this will remove that dreaded “activation required” message on your Blackberry Tour or Blackberry Storm.

If you need to unlock your Blackberry Tour or Blackberry Storm, please visit us here to get your Blackberry unlock code

1.) Press ##000000 send

2.) Enter your phone number,

3.) Press menu –>  save.

One of my favorite things to do is to read forums and try to help answer members questions.  As I’m sure many of you can relate, forums are an excellent way of getting your questions answered.

Today, I was reading on cellphoneforums.net and I came across a question that I absolutely love answering…and since I love the question so much, I thought it would be a great opportunity to write about it on my own blog.

What caught my eye first is the title…

Please help me with some unlock questions!

If that isn’t a desperate cry for some help, I don’t know what is….The question started off with “My current carrier is Verizon. I really want to use the LG lg255, but it is only offered to AT&T. Is there any way to unlock the phone or something to use it on Verizon? Thanks.”

And of course, the readers here should know that the answer is….no! Finally it led to my favorite question…

Then what does “unlocking” a phone do?

Here is my response…always a new way to say it, but the same message…

I would love to answer this question in short, but it’s difficult to do.

Seeing that you’re on Verizon, it makes it difficult because the only Verizon phones that can be unlocked are the Blackberry World series. Seeing that you want to use a phone from a different network (AT&T) and use it on Verizon, as mentioned above, it is not possible.

To go further into GSM (AT&T) vs. CDMA (Verizon), in short, GSM uses SIM cards while Verizon uses an ESN number.

With GSM phones, you do not need the carrier’s permission to use a phone. You can technically use any GSM phone and your carrier will never know that you swiched your phone – locked or unlocked.

With CDMA phones, you need to call in and let them know the ESN number. If the ESN number is not in their database, they will not activate the phone for you. For example, if you happened to like a Sprint phone and want to use it on Verizon, you will not be allowed to. As soon as the representative finds out that the phone does not belong to them, they will let you know that they cannot activate it.

Now to the longer, yet more informative part.

There are several advantages to unlocking your phone. First the summary…

#1.) You can use any GSM phone on any network — Ex. If you’re with AT&T and you absolutely love their bold, but found a better rate plan at T-mobile, you can take your bold, get it unlocked, and use it on the T-mobile network.

#2.) It increases the value of your phone significantly when you plan to sell or resell your phone. What a lot of people are doing these days is purchasing a cell phone on E-bay or other classifies (locked to whichever carrier), they unlock it, and sell it for a hundred bucks + from their purchase price. Not a bad side job if you know what you’re doing. It pays off when your unlock code only costs $20 doesn’t it?

#3.) The most important….Unlocking your phone has the potential to eliminate all roaming fees. Let’s get a grasp of roaming first.

Let’s use the wikipedia definition.

Quote:

In wireless telecommunications, roaming is a general term that refers to the extending of connectivity service in a location that is different from the home location where the service was registered.

In layman’s terms, once you leave the country, or your servicing area, you will begin roaming. To better illustrate this, if you are a US resident on AT&T, if you go to Canada, the friendly little AT&T text at the top of your phone will change to Rogers Wireless, or vice versa. Carriers have roaming partners and contracts where they can both benefit and make great cash off of end users, like all of us.

Getting to the beauty of unlocking your phone….

Let’s use the above example of an AT&T user traveling to Canada on business, to see family, you name it. Everyone has their reasons for traveling. After unlocking your phone, your phone has freedom and more power (not literally)! Rather than using your SIM card when traveling, you simply walk into one of the thousands of Rogers or Fido stores (the 2 Canadian GSM providers) and activate a prepaid SIM card. You will be given a local # in the city of travel and can load as much or as little as you’d like.

The biggest complaint we get is that people don’t like giving out 2 numbers to the people who need to reach them. There are 3 solutions to this problem.

#1.) Forward your primary carrier’s number to your new number. Of course there are fees to this, so it’s something you’ll have to duke out with your carrier.

#2.) Temporarily change your voice mail, stating your new number to call for emergency, pleasure or whatever your purpose is.

#3.) Suck it up and deal with a new temporary number – you’ll still have your original number as well, you probably won’t be using it though.

If at this point, you don’t understand how you can actually save money, I’ll let my blog posting talk. We published an article on our blog entitled “Cellfservices Wireless Usage and Roaming Survey – Are we ripping ourselves off?”. This will explain to you the long term and short term savings of unlocking your phone.

So that’s my poor excuse for a simple and short answer to your question.

Hope that helps!

Click here to view the thread.

These days, I’ve been getting several recurring questions related to unlocking or unlock codes. I thought that my blog would be the best way to help others answer these questions.  Today’s question of the day is from an Ottawa resident.

Q:  just wanted to thank you for the unlock code, but i have one more questions. Do you guys have a service to provide the MSL passwords? I need to  remove the activation required and change the “my number” to my actual number…any help would be great – s.b.

A:  I have found some sites out there that try to charge you for an MSL password, but it is indeed free.   First, I want to say…”Google is your best friend”.  I did a little research and came across the answer on one of my favorite forums – Crackberry Forums.

Hannelas Nicolas provided the following information in a thread….

“Telus Storms have each different codes. Thus ##000000 will not work.

Here are the procedure you will need to do to eliminate Activation Required.

Obtain these two programs:

1. uniCDMA
2. Hexworkshop

1. Install your blackberry desktop manager and plug in your storm.

2. Run desktop manager

3. Minimize DM and run uniCDMA

4. Select “Qualcomm” under the mode drop menu

5. Click setup and change the port to com4

6. Click read all and it should fill in the boxes on the left with your blackberry information

7. Click memory and change the starting address to 0×17c47cce and length to 524288. Click read and save to file.

8. Now open Hexworkshop and open the file you just created.

9. In the right box you will see a 6 digit number. That is your MSL password.

10. Unplug your blackberry and call ##XXXXXX (XXXXXX is the MSL password) Press Send

11. Change the Mobile Directory Number to you 10 digit cell number.

12. Press Menu then close and it will reset your phone and you are good to go.”

Note: You must have the original OS from Telus installed.

Thank you for the useful information!  You’ve helped a ton of people .  Big ups to you!

Motorola phones probably have the most straightforward and simple instructions.  These instructions apply to all Motorola phones whether it be the Motorola V3 Razr, Motorola E8, Motorola ZN5, Motorola K1 Krazr etc etc.

To purchase your motorola unlock code, please follow this link.

Unlock Instruction for Motorola
1) Power ON your phone with different SIM Card then the phone is locked to
2) Enter UNLOCK CODE
3) Device is now unlocked Note: If your phone is a 3G phone enter **057*, then another window will appear and ask for the subsidy password.

What do these messages mean?

- “Contact Service Provider”
- “Tamper Alter”
- “Wait Before Enter Special Code”
- “Contact Service’

It’s because you or somebody else has already entered too many wrong codes. You just have to leave the phone ON on the error message and after 1hr – 24hrs the message “Enter Special Code” will appear again!

Note: If your phone is on a 3G network enter **057*, then another window will appear to enter the unlock code.

There you have it.  Unlocking instructions for your Motorola phone.  Need the unlock code?  Visit us at unlock motorola or you can navigate through our main unlock page

Cellfservices has had some customers purchase an unlock code only to find out that their phone is already unlocked.  We would like to clarify that there are 2 methods to see if your phone is unlocked.

The easiest method for Blackberry users is to do the following…

1.) Go to options
2.) Advanced Options
3.) SIM Card
4.) Type MEPD.  (You will not see any text appear) — Here you will see a list like the above image.

Normally, all categories are listed as “Disabled” except the Network Category.   If your phone is unlocked, it will say Disabled beside the Network category.  This means your phone is already unlocked

The best and fool proof way for all phones is to put a SIM card into the phone that is not locked to the same carrier.  (Ex. Put an AT&T SIM card into your T-mobile phone).  I’m sure you have people within your social network that are not on the same carrier.

Your Blackberry PIN # is a unique identification number that allows you to use data services as well as Blackberry messenger services.

For most worldwide Blackberrys as well as any Telus or Bell phones, you need the PIN # to unlock your phone.  This can be found in a couple places.

1.) On the box of your phone.  It should be written on the side with a white sticker.
Note: This can be very unreliable as many people from third party sites (ex. ebay) sell phones with non-matching IMEIs and PINs.  If you get it from your carrier, it is more reliable

2.) By going to options – status.  You will find all the necessary information for your Blackberry mobile device here.

3.) On the homepage screen of your Blackberry phone, press ALT + CTRL + H.   You will find your PIN here as well.

After processing an abundant amount of codes,  you would be surprised at how many incorrect IMEIs are sent.

I’ll make this short and sweet.  Your IMEI number is found by pressing *#06#.  The only phone that this will not work on is the Blackberry Storm and potentially the Blackberry Tour.

For the Blackberry Storm 9500 or 9530, you must go to Options – Status.  Here you will find your IMEI which is a 15 digit number.

Any slashes or periods that you find are irrelevant, so you can disregard those.

Fake IMEIs:

Some people illegally alter their IMEIs.  This means that when you press *#06# the IMEI that appears may not be the true IMEI.  To find your true IMEI, you can find the IMEI on the back of your phone behind the battery.   This number cannot be altered.

Simple

Cellfservices will be giving away 5 free unlock codes to 5 unique Blackberry Tour users on the Verizon or Sprint network.   We have yet to unlock the Verizon or Sprint ones ourselves and would love for you to help us in testing new methods. We guarantee that your phone will not be tampered with, nor can it be damaged with an unlock code.

Follow this link and use coupon code – tourcode

NOTE: Our 5 users have already claimed their unlock codes.   To purchase your own Blackberry Tour unlock code, follow the link.

Introduction:

On May 22, 2009,  Cellfservices took a survey on wireless usage and travel.  The wireless carriers are not to blame since they are doing their job, running a successful business.  But what are we doing to ourselves?  Is this sign true?  Are we ripping ourselves off? Let’s find out…

After some extensive research, approximately 70% of cell phone users in Asia are using unlocked phones.  In Europe, approximately 80% use unlocked mobile devices.  Finally, North America is in last place with a whopping 5% of unlocked cell phone users.  Bloggers, theorists as well as tech gurus think that it’s primarily because wireless phone providers in North America provide massive subsidies on hardware in return for an extension of their contract.  Makes sense doesn’t it?  Another interesting fact: people in Europe and Asia are more willing than North Americans to spend $600-$700+ USD on unlocked mobile devices, while we’re a little more hesitant.  So what’s stopping us from purchasing a $20-$60 unlock code to give us mobile freedom when traveling?

Here are the answers that I’ve heard from some clients, friends and the random end users I meet in coffee shops etc.…. Underneath, I’ve left my own comments.

1.)    There are too many scams on the Internet with things like unlock codes.

1. There are several scam sites out there.  Why not read a few reviews on certain sites, go to a local cell phone shop or purchase from a reputable company?

2.)    I don’t need an unlocked phone.  I’m already with Rogers and I use a Rogers phone

1. That’s not the main benefit of unlocking your phone.  The beauty of it is to eliminate all roaming fees – in response I hear, “What? Tell me more!”

3.)    Isn’t it illegal?

1. If it’s illegal, I guess a lot of us will be going to jail…. In all seriousness, it is NOT illegal to unlock your cellular phone.  In Canada, Bill C-61 – An Act to amend the Copyright Act was introduced on June 12, 2008 (http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=3570473&file=4).  In a nutshell, this bill discusses copyright laws and would make ‘unlocking your cell phone’ illegal. Fortunately, it was never passed!  It is also legal in the United States and almost all other countries.  It is best to check your jurisdiction before attempting to unlock a cell phone.

The Survey:

We surveyed 1003 working class professionals to get an understanding of how people use their phones when roaming.  It wasn’t a shocker to see that the majority of North Americans think it’s more important to stay in touch and that roaming fees are not an issue to worry about.  Let’s let the statistics speak for themselves.  We asked 5 multiple choice questions…

1.)    Which wireless carrier do you currently use?

1. Rogers Wireless or Fido (Canadian GSM)
2. Telus or Bell Mobility (Canadian CDMA)
3. AT&T or T-mobile (USA GSM)
4. Verizon or Sprint (USA CDMA)

2.)    How often do you travel internationally?

1. 0 Times/Year
2. 1-5 Times/Year
3. 6-10 Times/Year
4. 10+ Times/Year

3.)    How long is your typical stay when you travel internationally?

1. 0-3 Days
2. 4-7 Days
3. 7-14 Days
4. 2-4 Weeks
5. Longer than 1 Month

4.)    What is your primary method of transportation when traveling internationally?

1. Airplane
2. Train
3. Chartered Bus
4. Car
5. Boat
6. Other

5.)    Do you use your cellular phone when traveling?

1. All the time. It’s more important to stay in touch than paying roaming fees
2. All the time!  I use prepaid SIM cards.
3. If I receive a call, I’m not going to ignore it.
4. Only for emergency calls
5. Never.  I either use it as an alarm clock or leave it at home.

Here are the percentages we received from our faithful survey participants.

Overview:

Wireless Carriers:

Out of 1003 people, 51.2% of North Americans are GSM users while 36.9% are CDMA users.  The other 15.5%, we have ignored since all of them do not reside in North America.

# of Times Traveled/Year:

66.7% of people travel 1-5 Times/Year.  While only 5.4% of people travel 10+ Times/Year.  The funny thing we found is that

Average # of Days/Trip:

32.7% of people travel 0-3 Days/, 28% of people travel 4-7Days/Trip, 32.7% travel 7-14 days/trip, 8.9% travel 2-4 Weeks and 3% travel more than 1 month.

Method of Transportation:

This was a dead giveaway.  87.5% of people travel via. Airplane.  Traveling by car is in second with 14.9% of people.

Wireless Usage when Roaming:

51.2% of people believe that it is more important to stay in touch than paying roaming fees, while 41% of people only use it when they have to or never use it.  Only 18.5% of people use prepaid SIM cards.

Analysis:

First, because this is an online survey we would like to note that the majority of people who took this survey are somewhat tech savvy.  We received several surveys from our partner Blackberry Cool and other cellular phone forums we participate in regularly.

From this study, we are able to conclude a few things that may help you realize how much money is truly being ‘wasted’ on roaming fees.  Since the only wireless carriers that are able to use unlocked phones with prepaid SIM cards are GSM carriers, we will narrow our wireless carrier question down to the following.  In our survey, 58.12% are GSM Users and 41.88% are CDMA North American users.  GSM of course dominates North America. Surprisingly enough, 77.5% of GSM users said that it is more important to stay in touch than pay roaming fees.  This means that the majority of tech savvy GSM users do not know the benefits of unlocking their mobile device.  What does that say about our not so “techy” people?

Moving on to our # of times traveled/year and average # of days/trip.  The majority of users travel at least 1-5 times/year.  On average, we will say that the majority of people travel 2.5 times/year.  72.6% of people travel for more than 4 days at a time which could mean HUGE savings with an unlocked phone and prepaid SIM cards.  The fact that more than 50% of people are willing to pay large roaming bills which will range anywhere from $100-$2000+ scares me.

Finally, 87.5% of people travel via. airplane.  The majority of people who travel from a North American country to a country overseas or even within the continent are amongst the richest people in the world.  In fact, if you have spare change in your ‘coin jar’ etc, you are within the top 80% of the wealthiest people in the world.  But why do we use our resources on something like roaming bills?  It’s simple….

We don’t know how to save money when roaming!

It’s either that, or we don’t care about throwing money away.

Let me paint a picture for you.  The following is a chart of North American GSM roaming rates.

When I take a look back at my trip to Boston in July of last year, I saved a ton!  I used prepaid SIM cards and did the following over an 8 day period… I am currently on the Rogers network.

240 Minutes Local Time – 20 Minutes Back to Canada – 60 texts sent – 75 texts received – Data for my Blackberry.  I spent less than $120 for that which sounds like a lot at first glance, but take a look at this.

Roaming in USA Calling to Canada: $1.7 x 20 = $34

In Country Calls (even with ignoring incoming calls): $0.95 x 240 = $228

Sent Text Messages: 60 x $0.60 = $36

($298 + $40 + $6.95 (saf) + 0.50 (911 fee)) x 1.13 (Ontario Tax Rate)

=  $390.36

In that 8 day period, I saved $270.36.  Now imagine if I happened to be roaming in Europe or in Africa.  The thought of spending that much money on a phone bill appalls me.

Conclusion:

It is bias for us to conclude that unlocking your phone is the way to go, but take a moment to think about it. Being in the industry of unlocking GSM phones, we feel that it is our responsibility to inform the public – end users, of the true benefits of the service we provide.

We provide a valuable service that has been around for years, but is still undermined by most North Americans.  Our hope is that this article and survey results have helped at least one person understand the potential in being economically efficient with your wireless usage.

T-mobile Prepaid SIM Card with Activation and Minutes

Cellfservices is now providing T-mobile Prepaid SIM cards with free activation and 10 starter anytime minutes.  The beauty of this product is that it allows end users to travel to the United States without worrying about paying roaming fees.

Simply purchase your unlock code at http://www.cellfservices.com/store/unlock.html – unlock your phone – insert your T-mobile SIM card into a non-t-mobile phone and activate your line.

When activating your line, you will be asked for some information and the area code you wish to have.  Within a few minutes, you will have a US phone number and you may add money to your account at anytime from anywhere.

There are NO contracts, no hidden fees, nothing!  I guess you could call this “getting more fun for your phone”