Current price to get phone unlocked?

[RockyMtnJay]

What is the current price to get a phone unlocked at Tukcom? Anyone have a favorite place to get it done?

 

I got an AIS Lava Iris 550 on the AIS phone trade in plan. It's suppose to be quad band so hoping I can use it in the US for my Thai SIM. 

[WetWilly]

I'm arriving into Pattaya for my first time ever, and I am also interested.

 

Subscribing.

[RockyMtnJay]

Guess I get to answer my own question. I went to Tukcom today to get my phone unlocked. Virtually every phone vendor has a sign up saying they unlock phones. The first place quoted me 500 baht. The second place quoted me 300 so I used the second place. I dropped off my phone and he told me to come back in 30 minutes. 35 minutes later I returned and my phone was waiting for me. But I really won't know for sure if it is properly unlocked until I get back home.

 

I get the feeling a lot of the little phone stores in Tukcom take the phone to someone else and get them unlocked. Not 100% sure but it seems that way. 

[johnlb]

  Get a local sim and try the phone. Or borrow a sim ...just to try. You'll know then.

 

They're locked to a particular phone co., so if another phone co. sim works you're good to go !!

 

Cheers

[RockyMtnJay]

  Get a local sim and try the phone. Or borrow a sim ...just to try. You'll know then.

 

They're locked to a particular phone co., so if another phone co. sim works you're good to go !!

 

Cheers

 

Thanks. Yes I know I could try a different brand of SIM to verify. But I'm leaving in 1.5 days so I will find out when I get home. It's either unlocked of it isn't. If it isn't I won't bother to trying again this trip.

 

I'm not 100% sure International Roaming is going to work without an app. All I want to do is receive texts. So I may have more work to do for roaming.

[paulyd2k]

I thought all thai phones would work anywhere they aint locked to providers like other countries where you take out a contract for call time, but I could be wrong

[secret tom]

Guess I get to answer my own question. I went to Tukcom today to get my phone unlocked. Virtually every phone vendor has a sign up saying they unlock phones. The first place quoted me 500 baht. The second place quoted me 300 so I used the second place. I dropped off my phone and he told me to come back in 30 minutes. 35 minutes later I returned and my phone was waiting for me. But I really won't know for sure if it is properly unlocked until I get back home.

 

I get the feeling a lot of the little phone stores in Tukcom take the phone to someone else and get them unlocked. Not 100% sure but it seems that way. 

they do  one big shop with have the software..all others are feeders to it...they may get 100 bhat a unlock..the rest is the software guy

[RockyMtnJay]

My AIS Lave Iris 550 is working fine here in the US for receiving free texts from Thailand after the unlock. International roaming needs to be turned on in the SIM and AIS recommends that you turn off data (*129*1#) so it won't automatically give you roaming data which isn't cheap.

 

paulyd2k my phone was basically given to me free by AIS for topping up 1190 baht. So it was locked to only work on AIS and in Thailand. Many phones sold in Thailand don't work on the frequencies in the US and other western countries. Less of a problem since many now use expensive Apple and Sansung phones that work anywhere. But there is a fair chance that a more basic phone bought in Thailand won't work in many countries even if unlocked.