I've seen those signs to "Liberate" your locked-phone and I never really understood it. Why would a phone be locked-down when you buy it? Hmmm.. When I got my first mobile contract here in Spain they gave me the new pocket phone. 9 months later I went into FNAC and bought myself a smartphone and simply switched out the SIM card from the old phone to the new phone and it worked instantly. Then when I got my NEW smart phone a couple months ago I did the same, switching out the SIM card from one to the other without any unlocking. Curious. Maybe smartphones don't come locked-down??

Saludos, MadridMan

Update here, all subsidy phones, and that is pretty much any phone bought from a carrier, is locked down. BUT here is the key, after one year, by law they must unlock it. I did that with my iphone, wanted to switch to PepePhone (not as cheap as they say) so I called Movistar, got it unlocked, but when I tried to put the new SIM in it didn't work. I called Movistar in English and they told me what I was doing wrong. Pretty impressive considering they were losing me as a customer. Anyways long story short, I simply needed to sync it with itunes.

Now that I'm on pepephone I'm giving serious thought going back to Movistar.

BTW anyone know what is cost to unlock an old chocolate bar phone?

Rob,

I unlocked my old phone years back. It was a sony ericsson walkman phone, so pretty old. It wasn't an official unlock from the company and I can't remember the exact price; I don't remember it being over 10 euros here in Barcelona from a local shop that does "phone liberation". Maybe like 5 euros or 7 euros.

I doubt any official unlocking would cost more than that if anything.