unlock

[Mychaela Falconia]

Hi David!

> Firstly due to recent chaotic circumstances, I think I've lost my unlock
> cable. I seem to remember there was a preferred supplier?

The cable I use is this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/252275767181

George is our official cable vendor, selling cables with stickers
carrying FreeCalypso branding!  (Our FreeCalypso brand has been
trademarked with USPTO since 2018, but George is applying our
FreeCalypso trademark to his cables with my official blessing - in
contrast, some random stranger cannot legally apply FreeCalypso
branding to their own products competing in the cellular telephony
market space.)

> Second - I've bought a C139, very nice almost unused *except* it's locked.

Please clarify what you mean by locked: do you mean locked as in not
accepting SIM cards from operators other than one in particular, or do
you mean locked as in having a locked bootloader?  Since you said that
you don't have a programming cable on hand at the present moment, I
assume that you meant the former - a locked bootloader is something
you run into when you try to get code download entry, which requires a
cable.

> Can any of the freecalypso tools deal with this, or will flashing freecalypso
> unlock it when the time comes?

A SIM lock is a pure firmware malfeature, thus replacing the firmware
with FC naturally removes it.  Practically usable FC fw for C139 or
for any other handset (as opposed to AT-command-controlled modem) is
still at least another several months away, but our tools can also be
used to reflash a phone from one official fw version to a different
one.  We have several C139 fw versions on our FTP site which have only
Motorola branding, no carrier branding, and on all carrier-branded and
SIM-locked C139 specimen I have encountered so far, replacing the
original fw with this Moto-brand-only version has successfully removed
the SIM restriction.

While you wait for your new programming cable to arrive, please tell
me the following:

1) Based on the logos etc that appear on the display when you turn it
on and off, what is the current branding on your C139?

2) One can enter key sequence #02# on most C1xx phones (with or without
a SIM, doesn't matter), and it will display firmware version and other
system information.  There will be a lot of info on that screen and I
won't ask you to hand-copy all of it, but please tell me the following
bits:

* The line that begins with 'SW Ver:';
* The lines that begin with FFN and LPN;
* The line that begins with 'Uart Flag:', if there is one.

IMO the biggest problem with these ultra-low-end phones like C1xx is
that they were not made with universal bands: instead there is one
C139 hw variant that only supports EU bands (900 & 1800 MHz), and the
other C139 hw variant that only supports NA bands (850 & 1900 MHz).  I
have somewhere around 50 C139 phones in my stash, so I could very
easily just send you one, except for one problem: all of these phones
I've amassed are the NA bands version, whereas you probably need the
EU bands version, assuming that your goal is to connect to GSM networks
in the UK or South Africa.  The new C139 phone you just got - are you
absolutely certain that it has the right bands?

You can also try looking for C140 phones - it's exactly the same as
C139 (I never figured out what the diff is, and they do run the same
fw), but AFAIK C140 phones were only made with EU bands, thus if you
get a C140, it should be correct for your geopolitical region.

> I also seem to no longer have the freerunner, which is a bit of a pain -
> possibly the only (just about) usable free phone in the world!

Are you saying that you LOST your FreeRunner?!  Now that would be
totally unacceptable - do you realize that it would cost about $100k
to produce a new phone that would be as close as possible to a
verbatim clone of the FR?

> I do still have the Pirelli though.

In that case you may want to start by inserting your SIM into your
Pirelli phone, to make sure that the SIM is good and to verify GSM/2G
coverage in your area.

M~