As reported earlier this month some enterprising, but not exactly law abiding, individuals have been buying iPhone 4’s from ChinaUnicom complete with 2 year network plan then selling the phone and SIM separately to make a profit. Obviously ChinaUnicom aren’t to happy about this and are threatening to remotely lock iPhone 4’s found on rival networks.
Currently the iPhone 4 plus 2 year contract costs ChinaUnicom customers 5880 Yuan plus 286 Yuan per month. For this deal customers get 900 free minutes, access to Unicom’s 3G network plus an unlocked iPhone 4.
Some vendors have been selling the unlocked iPhone 4 (an unlocked iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2 is a sought after device) for 5800 Yuan then selling the SIM card with networkaccess for an additional 600 Yuan.
To combat this Unicom have released new rules stating that all iPhone 4’s bought after December 1st must remain on the ChinaUnicomnetwork for the duration of the contract. Any user found to defect to a rivalnetwork will find their shiny iPhone 4 locked, meaning it will only work on Unicom’s network!