Virgin Media Community

[mikossie]

I have a Nokia 700 which will not accept a new network sim card (sim card not valid appears on the screen). Virgin help desk tells me the phone is not locked to them even though the Virgin logo appears on screen when switching on the phone whether a Virgin sim card is installed or not. I applied and was given an unlock code (even though it's supposed not to be locked) but at no point in all my fiddling with the phone did it ask for the unlock code to be entered. The new sim card works fine in an old phone of mine so I know the new sim is not the problem. Any ideas to stop me losing the rest of my hair would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance

Mike

[Rachael_F]

Hi Mike,

Welcome to our forums and thank you for posting. I'm sorry that you've had difficulty using your mobile with a new SIM, we'll do what we can to advise accordingly.

If our support team has advised that this handset is not locked to our network, I'm confident they've provided the correct information. If the phone was locked, I would expect you to see an error message indicating the need to unlock the handset when you start it up. As you're not provided with the opportunity to enter your unlock code, I'm wondering whether the issue is due to SIM compatibility.

As this is an older handset, it may not be able to recognise newer standards - e.g. if it's a 2G phone but you're trying to use a 4G SIM. Have you checked what type of SIM you're trying to use and what this particular device is able to recognise?

Regarding the Virgin logo, this doesn't necessarily mean that the phone is still locked to us. I do believe you can remove this by typing #67705646# from the dialling screen of your phone (this may just be for certain models).

Thanks,

Rachael

[enlli]

The way you unlock these handsets is a bit different from the norm.

1. Turn on the phone without any sim card
2. Enter the following sequence (#pw+unlock code+1#) on your NOKIA 700 just like a phone number*
* Characters p, w, + will appear after pressing the *(star) symbol a couple of times
4. Press # at the end to confirm the code
5. Message "SIM restriction OFF" should appear.
Your Nokia 700 is now unlocked 

[mikossie]

I thank you both for replies.The result was that neither of your suggestion worked so I took the phone 

into a professional phone/IT shop and asked them to see if they could unlock it. The result was even having 

it all day they were not able to unlock it so my wife has bought another phone and has now joined me on the

Vodafone network.

Thanks again 

[aurora1]

Hi Mike,

I just had the same problem with my Nokia 700 and  the unlock code that they sent me with the new purple sim. 

After much trial and error I have just found that what worked was to unlock it at level 7 instead of the default level 1,

i.e. enter  #pw+unlock code+7# from the keyboard

There is also a program called Nokia BB5 utility which you can find if you google it. This will reset your key count (i.e. unlocking attempts counter ) back to zero if need be and also can be used to send the unlock key. 

If you still have the phone it might be worth a try! 

Cheers, Ian.