It appears that AT&T has been performing iPhone unlocks for customers who still have contracts in effect. AT&T first announced in April that it would begin unlocking some iPhones, depending on if they meet the company’s stringent requirements.
According to an Ars forum thread, numerous posters were able to unlock their devices after submitting unlock requests to AT&T, despite the fact that many of them still had time—sometimes a lot of time—left on their contracts. This seems to go against AT&T’s publicly stated policy that it only performs unlocks for users who are no longer in “active term commitments.”
According to the thread, users of both iPhone 4 and 4S devices have asked AT&T to unlock their devices after placing a request through AT&T’s Web form. A confirmation email from AT&T then arrives in a day or so, and users are instructed to backup their phones and perform a full restore from iTunes. A confirmation screen after the restore states that the device has been unlocked. Some say they only saw success after inserting a new SIM card, but it does not appear that a new SIM is a requirement.
AT&T has said that it would unlock some iPhones, depending on if they met the company’s stringent requirements. The company says the iPhone being unlocked cannot be under contract, and your account must be in good standing for the request to be approved. However, several posters on the thread said they had neither cancelled or completed their contracts with AT&T.
“I got this even though I’m 10 months into my 2 year contract,” Ars poster lunarobverse wrote. “When I upgrade to the iPhone 5 next week, I’ll still have to pay the ETF but it’ll make selling my old iPhone (or handing it down to an iPhone-less friend) much easier.”
“I was also able to get AT&T to unlock my 4S by filling out the online unlock request last week. I’m not even one year into my 2-year contract, so I’m not sure what their policy is,” another poster named DarwinKS wrote.
Not everyone appears to be having the same kind of luck though, indicating this may be more of a loophole than a change in company policy.
AT&T confirmed to Ars that any iPhone users still under contract should not qualify for an unlock:
“We offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones online,” AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom told Ars. “The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.”
Have any of our readers had any success getting AT&T to unlock your iPhone even though you’re still under contract? If so, let us know in the comments section below.
Update (9/10/12): We received an email from AT&T this morning informing us that one of our iPhones (with over one year still left on contract) was now unlocked – and restoring it through iTunes worked completely. It also appears that AT&T is aware when devices are still under contract (the subject line of the email reads “Subside Device Unlock Request”, and unlocks those devices anyway.
Thank you for contacting AT&T Customer Care about unlocking your iPhone. We have reviewed your request and confirmed that you are eligible to have the requested iPhone unlocked.
To complete the unlock, simply:
1. Open iTunes on your Mac or PC and verify that you have internet connectivity.
2. Connect your iPhone using the dock connector to USB cable that came with your iPhone.
3. Backup and restore your iPhone using iTunes. For information on backup and restore, please visit http://support.apple.com/kb/
HT1414 .4. After restoring, your iPhone will be unlocked.
Additional information on unlocking can be found at http://support.apple.com/kb/
TS3198 .
