As soon as you are out of your contractually mandatory period with your carrier, you can start looking around to see what sort of savings are available.
You’ll need to Unlock of course, but more on that later.
Some of the differences in price are quite stunning.
Save Hundreds A Year!
For example, (Feb 2011) I found that two broadly similar packages (one from AT&T and one from T-Mobile) were priced at $134.99 and $70.00 respectively. By moving from one carrier to the other you can save HUNDREDS of dollars a year!
Of course, you may well need to Unlock your iPhone first. Unlocking is generally a pretty straightforward process, but can be quite complex if your technical confidence isn’t’t that high
A good friend of mine Unlocked his iPhone on his own, but it took him almost 4 hours; not an experience he’d likely recommend for anybody else.
In my conversation with him, it became clear that he was really after some help in seeing himself through the process. There are software companies out there that will help the less confident through the jailbreak and unlock process. If you’re pretty confident regarding your ability to put things right if you get stuck, then these kind of services probably aren’t for you.
Additionally, people aren’t always aware that you can often Jailbreak at the same time as Unlocking.
Jailbreaking offers the best of both worlds – all the apple stuff will still work, but you also get access to Cydia a great online app store that really opens up hundreds of new features, games and wallpapers.
Also, you can use your iPhone as a wireless tether.
So – all told – we’ve jailbroken and unlocked – saved money and had more fun!