Expert: DebiN - 11/12/2011

Question
QUESTION: I have an at&t phone I want to use on tmobile.  Its an sgh a-927.  When I put my tmobile sim card in, it says network locked and I need to enter a code.

How can I get this code?  I have seen sites all over the internet that charge money to do it.  Do you know any free sites or any reputable sites to pay for the code?

ANSWER: Your phone is SIM locked to AT&T. When you were still with AT&T, you could have contacted them and asked them for the unlock code and they would have provided it. Because your service is now with T-Mobile, and you no longer have AT&T service, they cannot unlock the phone for you. TO use it with T-Mobile, you will need to find someone (typically you can search on line for SIM unlocking) to provide an unlock code to you. It's not free and it's not guaranteed and even when the phone is unlocked, you will need to program the T-Mobile WAP and MMS settings into the phone. I'm not a fan of this practice nor do I know of any reputable sites. There are no sites that are free, that I do know. I'm sorry that I didn't have better news for you.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks.  Here is an unrelated follow up question.

My wife and I have different blackberries on tmobile.  We use instant messengers and both have the same problem of them disconnecting without notification.  Very frustrating because several times a day we realize our messages werent going thru to each other and we have to log out of the IM and log back in.  So far, we have used yahoo and google IM's.

Have any advice?

It wouldn't be so bad being disconnected, if only we knew when it was happening, so that we could right away log back in.

Answer
Have you tried using BlackBerry Instant Messenger? It's free and should be more reliable. The BlackBerrys aren't designed to be able to stay connected to Yahoo or Google such that you can use the IM properly on the BlackBerry. As soon as you go out of the "Internet" screen, you would lose your connection. It's actually because the BlackBerry operating system works in such a way to be optimal that this is occuring. But if you use BlackBerry IM, you shouldn't have the issue you are having. That will stay connected. I hope this helps.