As I said in an earlier post, over the weekend I visited several telco stores at our local shopping centre to find out just how easy it is to unlock a usb modem and buy another providers sim card to use it with. This is the feedback I received.
3 Mobile – the guys at the stand told that it was possible but they had never done it before. The recommended I bring in my laptop and give it a try. They just couldn’t guarantee that it would work. They said that I needed to ensure that the usb modem had actually been unlocked. What I forgot to ask was what was involved in unlocking a 3 Mobile USB modem.
Vodafone – told me that you couldn’t unlock your Vodafone modem. And if I wanted to use their recharge vouchers that I needed to buy one of their USM modems through which to use it.
Optus – told me that they had not unlocked a modem before and said that at a retail store level it was complicated. The store was actually a franchise store, so maybe I needed to speak to tech support person at Optus rather than a store. If you visit the Optus site though, it says that that modems are locked for 12mths and you need to pay a fee of $100 to unlock them. Remember that this is a fee not a recharge voucher.
Virgin – these where the only guys that gave me a confident answer that they could unlock a Virgin USM modem to be used on another providers plan. They also said that Virgin plans don’t charge you a fee to unlock the modem, you simply need to recharge atleast $80 on your new service.
So where does that leave us. If you want an unlocked USB modem, then Optus, 3 Mobile and Virgin are where to go. Optus will charge you $100 for the pleasure. 3 Mobile can’t guarantee if it will work or not and Virgin say Yes thanks we can unlock and we won;t charge you a fee.
I will do some more diging around 3 Mobile to what what else I can discover. Visit us at prepaidplans.com.au to find out how much buying a prepaid broadband sim card.
