Month: February 2009

How to Unlock the Huawei E220 HSDPA modem

The Huawei E220 (or Vodafone E220) is the HSDPA modem you usually get from Dialog Telecom or Mobitel GSM (and maybe Airtel) when you sign up for mobile broadband. Thing is, it’s usually operator-locked, so you’re stuck with one network, even when your ISP starts treating you like dirt. If you caught my last post, you know why I decided to unlock my Huawei E220 from Dialog Telecom. Here, I’ll walk you through how I did it, keeping it as simple as possible. Feel free to hit me up if you need any help.

e220

Disclaimer: I’m not responsible or liable for anything you do with this tutorial. Use it at your own risk.

Alright, with the usual “Disclaimer” out of the way, here’s what you need to do.

First, grab these tools: E220 CardLock Unlocker E220 Updater version 11.117.09.04.00 QC Mobile Analysis Tool And a hex editor, though if you do it right, a basic text editor might work too 😉

Or just download and unzip this file. It’s got everything you need, including a lightweight portable hex editor 🙂

Unlocking the E220 is as easy as running the E220 CardLock Unlock tool, punching in the unlock code, and hitting “OK.” But that’s only if you already *know* the unlock code.

unlock

So how do you figure out the unlock code? That’s where the other tools come in.

Plug your modem into your computer and run the E220 Updater. Wait for it to detect your modem, then hit the “Cancel” button. Yep, cancel it! This just preps things for the real tool to spot the modem easier.

e220UpdateNow open the QC BQS Analyzer, click the Hardware Forensics menu, and pick Use Com/USB Port. QCMob-1Now the “QC Com Diag” window should pop up. Usually, your modem and COM port are auto-selected in the Serial Com Port dropdown. If not, pick it yourself. Then hit the “Send Cmd” button and wait until “Successfully sent command” shows up in the bottom right. QCMob-2 Now select “Read EFS” from the Diag Functions dropdown and click the “Let’s go” button. When prompted, name the file e220.bin and save it. You should see a “Successfully read EFS” message. QCMob-3 Time for some hex digging 🙂 Open the e220.bin file in your hex editor. Search for the ASCII string Sd, (yep, with the comma) or the hex string 53 64 2c. After some random characters, you’ll spot a clean 8-digit code. Trust me, it stands out, and guess what? That’s your unlock code 😀 HexOnce you’ve got the unlock code, just pop it into the CardLock Unlock tool, click “OK,” and boom! your modem’s unlocked!! 😀

Hope this helps! I’d love to hear what you think. Good luck unlocking your modems 🙂 ~SeeJay

Why I unlocked my HSDPA modem (and why you should too)

As usual, it’s old news to my Twitter followers that I’ve unlocked my Huawei E220 HSDPA modem, which I got with my mobile broadband from Dialog Telecom. It was operator-locked, meaning it only worked with Dialog. I’ve got to say, I loved mobile broadband. The idea of having internet wherever I went was awesome. But Dialog’s been doing everything they can to mess that up. When I signed up, they promised 3.6Mbps, but I’ve never seen anything above 1Mbps. And sometimes their DNS servers crap out, making the connection totally useless.

“They’ll get their act together eventually, and we’ll see decent speeds someday,” I told myself. Man, was I wrong.

A few weeks ago, I noticed Dialog quietly “updated” the mobile broadband speed to 1Mbps on their website. Hold up! What about the connection I bought? What happened to the “super-duper fast” (yeah, I know, hilarious, but that’s how they sold it :P) internet that was supposed to hit 3.6Mbps???
My first thought was, “WTF! Who do they think we are? How do they think they’ll get away with this???” The answer’s simple. They knew they couldn’t deliver 3.6Mbps from the start, but they lied. Why? Because they’re the mighty Dialog Telecom, and we’re just helpless customers in their eyes.

“They’ve already paid, so why care? They can’t switch providers since it’s locked,” – that’s probably what Dialog’s big shots are thinking.
Well, Dialog, I’ve got news for you: anything that can be locked can be unlocked! at least with this HSDPA modem you sold us 😛 And that’s exactly what I did. Now I’ve got a fully functional Huawei E220 HSDPA modem 😀

Unlocking it was pretty straightforward, and no, I didn’t shell out cash to some company to do it 😛 I handled it myself after some solid Googling (shoutout to OpenDNS! Web browsing is a nightmare with Dialog’s junk DNS servers. If you’re still using them, switch to http://opendns.com you’ll thank me later :P).

The first question I got on Twitter was, “Are you switching to Airtel now?” My answer? “Nope!”

I’m not ditching Dialog just yet. Why not? Because I signed up for six months, and I’ll stick to that deal. So why unlock it then? Easy! after six months, I’m free to do whatever, but they’re banking on me being stuck with their modem and not switching. They don’t care. Now that I can hop between networks with this same modem, they know I might, and that’s what keeps greedy companies like Dialog from screwing us over. It’s why we should all do it! Teach them to respect their customers.

There are tons of guides out there for unlocking HSDPA modems. My next post, which I’ll write tomorrow morning, will be a step-by-step on unlocking the Huawei E220, the most common HSDPA modem in Sri Lanka. Most of my friends have this one, so chances are you do too. Let me know if you’ve got a different model, I’m always happy to help.

Don’t get it wrong, I’m not some Airtel shill or out to take down Dialog Telecom (LOL!). This isn’t just about Dialog either, it applies to Mobitel, Airtel or whoever there is! My point is, we customers deserve the freedom to pick a network that actually delivers decent service. If they won’t give it to us, we’ve got to push back! I just took the first swing.
~SeeJay