Arriving with a few AT&T iPhone 4s'

[Joshua]

Trying to overplan my arrival as most farang, but this I think is important. When I arrive the very first thing I want after the baggage claim and currency exchange is my phone to function. I have heard from reliable people that SIM cards cards can be purchased from the carriers immediately after going through customs, but I am arriving at 1am can (i.e. WILL?) these vendors unlock my phone right there at the airport so that it can be used on their network? At 1am??

If not I know how to unlock them, I just don't know if I restore them whether they will remain unlocked. I don't like it jailbroken and would have to jailbreak to unlock, so I want to either let them do it or be certain it can be restored yet remain unlocked.

[Curt]

The phone will have to be unlocked. Plus, I'm not sure that the airport kiosks will have the required "micro-sim"needed for the iPhone. Also, I'm not sure that the vendors at the airport are "techs". Selling phones, sims and accessories will probably cover their range of expertise.

But, here's the deal with having any work done on anything in Thailand. Whatever the question, the answer will be "Yes; no problem."

[Rori]

I found this link http://mashable.com/2012/07/22/perma...unlock-iphone/
It seems you can unlock at&t iphone permanently without jailbreak.
Not sure if 1 am the shops are open, and as Curt said they arent technical enough to unlock your phone. With the sim size, you can cut the normal sim to microsim yourself. I ve done it many times and it is pretty simple and works perfectly.

[badfish]

Joshua, for your iPhone to be unlocked either with the adapter or via SAM unlock, you need to be on the right baseband version. Otherwise it's impossible. iclarified.com can tell you if your phone can be unlocked.

Also it says in the title that you will be arriving with a few 4S phones. Be careful with this as I've been caught and had to pay duties when I brought in several iPads.

Hopefully your iPhone 4S is with AT&T and you can request an unlock from them online via chat and it will happen immediately. Well you do have to do a restore, but I just had this done while I was here in Thailand and the process was fast via the online chat. There is a ticket submission method but it took over 2 days for them to get back to me. Factory unlock is the best unlock you can get. This is the best way for you to do it.

General Eligibility Requirements for Unlocking iPhone

AT&T will unlock an iPhone under the following circumstances:

• The person requesting the unlock is:
  
  • a current AT&T customer or
  • a former AT&T customer who can provide the phone number or account number for the account
• The iPhone was designed for use on AT&T's network;
• All contract obligations, including any term commitment, associated with the device to be unlocked have been fully satisfied; and
• The iPhone has not been reported lost or stolen

Before I arrived this trip, I also got them to give me the unlock code for my 2 week old Samsung Galaxy S3 via online chat.

Last, you can buy a SIM at the airport but I didn't see any shops that can unlock phones or had the knowledge you would find at MBK. If your phone is AT&T, request the unlock from them via online chat and your life with the iPhone will be great. These unlock and jailbreaking hacks can often cause problems and you don't want to do it if you can get your phone factory unlocked.

[Joshua]

Thank you all for the help. Badfish good call on the multiple phone issue and VAT, however I am bringing one phone per traveller, no extras. I will give AT&T a call and if they refuse due to contract not being completed I will just take them to MBK in the morning. I actually planned to make it the first stop after some sleep, but I was informed the airport had the SIM cards and I thought to myself how that could save me many hours. I would venture to guess that the girls would be very angry with me if I found a way to cut MBK out of their time in Bangkok anyway. You probably have saved me some heartache.