My mobile handset (Huawei) has recently been stolen. It is prepaid and running on the Spark network who I have rung and was advised that it is now blocked. The phone was purchased from Spark who I assume had it locked to their network. Can someone please advise just how "deep" this blocking goes ? Is it possible for anyone to unlock the phone and use a SIM from another network ?
Just a couple of side questions 1. When a phone is locked to a network - is this done within the phone itself or is it done on the network ? 2. If a phone is not locked to a network, is the provider aware of the IMEI number. In other words does this info go down the line if you change SIM card.
Thanks a lot
Bloodnok
3 different things here
1. Lock A phone can be locked to a network so it only works with that network until its unlocked (normally by unlock codes entered into the handset that you get from your telco after paying money). This is normally done at phone level and the reason why some telco's can release phones so cheap. This has nothing to do with stolen handsets etc, it is used to lock a phone to 1 network so the user has to use that network.
2. Blocked If a phone is stolen then the telco can put a block on the IMEI. Every mobile phone sold in NZ (and most phones made) have a IMEI number, the telco can block a IMEI from getting on it's network. In the past telco's would not share this info so if it was blocked on 1 network i.e. spark then it could be used on others however a few years back the telco's in NZ started to share this info so if you it's blocked on 1 network it will end up blocked on all of them after a few weeks. This is at phone/network level, once this is done there is very little that can be done to re-enable the phone back on to any network and a very limited amount of people in NZ can even get it off the blacklist. Just easier to buy another phone.
3. Sim blocked Telcos will block the sim if you report the phone stolen as a first step to stop people using the stolen account.
Also most phones now (apple and new android devices) come with an account lock at device level. This means that once a user has signed in with a google account (android) or a icloud account (apple) it is then locked to that users ID. This means that even after a reset of the device (clean wipe and reload of firmware) you still have to enter in the user ID to activate the device. If you do not have this then you can't use the device.
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