Well, here's one advantage to living in Europe:
Olly Farshi, who writes TheAppleBlog.com, had a two-year-old iPhone 3G and a contract with Finnish cell carrier Sonera. After paying off the contract in full, Farshi went to synch his iPhone — only to discover that he was entitled to an official carrier update that unlocked his phone.
Writes Farshi, “When upgrading to the iPhone 3GS, those same customers are given the
option to pay off the remainder of their original 3G contract. Paying
off the contract, and thus completing the two years prematurely,
entitles the customer to have their iPhone 3G unlocked.” Needless to say, he prefers this legal loophole to methods such as proxy SIM's or Dev-Team cracks.
[Via TheAppleBlog.com]
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What about US and Canada?
Why we didn’t get such options?
We pay our part of the bargin after two years of contracts.