A year and half ago, I was on a business trip to UK for 3 months. I needed a rich feature phone so I bought a 6630 handset from a local Chinese student who bought it with a contract. The dude told me the phone is good on Three with pay-as-you-go sim card, so I paid him and happily enjoyed this great phone for my 3-month stay in UK.

After I came back to US from UK, I found out immediately my T-Mobile US sim didn’t work with 6630 at all, actually nor did any sim card from any other network. I was indeed frustrated but extensive research I did online made me feel at least a bit better as no software, device, clip is available to unlock 6630 yet. So I couldn’t be bothered to get it unlocked any time soon and the phone was in my drawer for 1 year!

Recently I came across some discussions about the possibility to unlock 6630 by calling Three. I tried to call Three but they told me unlock can only be requested by contract owner. So I went back to the forum where I first met that Chinese dude, added him to my MSN and had a nice chat with him. I then asked him if he help me to get my phone unlocked via Three. He’s a really kind person and said no problem. I gave him the IMEI and model number and one week later he came back to me told me Three asked for 15 pounds unlock fee. I said no problem and wired him the money. Few days after, he emailed me the unlock instruction and code from Three.

I powered on my 6630 and carefully punched in the code, millisecond later phone screen showed “sim restriction off” and then rebooted, I put my T-mobile sim card in and GSM reception was available right away!

moral of the story: Don't bother trying other unlock methods, doing so will only kill ur phone and make it only lockable by cable (in unknown future). Code from your network is the safest and most accurate method to unlock ur BB5 phone. thus, by all means try your best to talk to your network provide for unlock advice.

P.S. Three would tell you to have a valid Three sim card in your phone when typing in unlock code. In fact it is not necessary. It’s just an another way for them to double confirm you are their customer.