IPhone 3G firmware 2.2.1, BB 2.30.03, BL 5.9 UNLOCKED !

Finally and after a lot of waiting and frustration I unlocked my two IPhone 3G with the cursed 2.2.1 operating system, baseband version 2.30.03 that were not downgradable to 2.28 because both had Boot Loader 5.9 ... yes, I have 2 and got them separately from eBay and both were stuck and have been used as thick IPods for the past 2 months

I tried to get an Ultra SIM, I purchased one from a reseller in Mansoura, Egypt, here is their website http://www.gsmegypt.com/VB/index.php, they started by stating that it doesn't work for Mobinil Egypt SIM cards, not sure why ... then they got it to work once on a Vodafone Egypt line of their own, when I tried my own Vodafone SIM, it didn't work, taking the iPhone back to them they tried to re-program the Ultra SIM to work with my SIM card, but failed big time and they refused to refund the money, that attempt costed 70 EGP and a lot of time from my "Mansourian" colleagues, thanks to Ahmed Abdalla and Ahmed Soliman for the help in that. Bottom line is that I won't recommend that Ultra SIM to anyone, because it is not stable and it can register to your network for a while and later you would lose that and get back to the locked state.

Finally the Dev-Team guys released ultrasn0w, the unlock for IPhone 3G firmware 3.0, the previously blogged here that they are skipping the Bootloader 5.9 problem and had an unlock ready for firmware 3.0 but according to the cat and mouse game they won't release it until Apple has done its official release of the new IPhone 3G S fearing that if they would release it earlier Apple would notice the crash that allowed them to inject the unlock and fix it and they would have lost an important edge

so, here it is, and without further ado, the steps that I followed and redeemed my IPhone, quoted from the Dev-Team official blog with a couple of links added

Ultra's Now!

Ultrasn0w for iPhone 3G is ready!

1. Ensure you have upgraded to iPhone OS 3.0 (download the image here), press SHIFT while clicking on the restore button in iTunes then browse for the image file


2. Jailbreak your iPhone 3G using redsn0w or PwnageTool (this will also install Cydia/Icy)


3. Run Cydia or Icy


4. Please add the repo repo666.ultrasn0w.com to Cydia or Icy. That last “o” is actually the number zero “0”! If you use the letter “o” you’ll get an error.


5. Search for ‘ultrasn0w’ in cydia or icy and install ultrasn0w


6. Reboot your iPhone 3G


7. T-Mobile USA users should disable 3G before using ultrasn0w


8. Enjoy

And I'm enjoying indeed

Big thanks to Ahmed Soliman for his support in this one as well, Soli, you are the God Father of my iPhone ;)