SIM-locked MPx220, way to find its carrier?

[Guest badbob001]

I received a MPx220 but I can't use it since I'm on T-Mobile and the phone is locked to another carrier. I'm told that it's suppose to be locked to At&T/Cingular, but I can't figure which, if that fact is true at all. Is there a way to find which carrier locked the phone?

There are no carrier logos on the phone. Upon startup, instead of a carrier logo splash page, it shows the word: MobileOperator with a circular design above. Below the keypad, it just says MPx220 instead of something like Cingular. Does the AT&T version have a logo below the keypad?

My nimble fingers managed to get the phone into flight-mode before the SIM LOCKED window pops up so I can access the phone, but I still don't see any obvious carrier specific items. I did hard-reset the phone before I managed to get into flight-mode... was that bad? I assume carrier-specific customizations would survice a hard-reset. Any files or registry item I can look for?

I do have the box. Anything I can tell from there? It was made in 12/2004.

Well, one solution is to get sim cards from people and see which one it doesn't complain about. I'm still in the process of that, but many people I know are on T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon. Uggg.

I just hope it's not locked to At&t because I hear that Cingular will not provide unlocking codes for at&t phone (WTF).

Any ideas? Thanks!

[Guest lewinb]

you've got to find someone who is a Cingular Customer, and willing to make a few phone calls for you.... Cingular is a real pain in the *** about it. But, any Cingular customer has the *right* to have their phone unlocked for free. You just have to get a CS rep who knows what they're doing.

I posted a response to someone else a few days ago that tells how to go about getting the unlock code from them. Or, you could let someone else besides Cingular screw you, by paying the insane amounts demanded by third-party companies that do this on the web.

Can you tell I'm bitter about Cingular? ;)