Thoms'blognote

Before you start : Your are responsible for your phone, your contract and your bills! Don't blame others for what you do with your own hands!

You can get the list of Apple officially supported carriers here : Locating iPhone wireless carriers.

Luckily, when your carrier is not supported, it is possible to generate one's own carrier profile that will fix this behavior (tested here with iPhone 3G / IOS 3.1.3 / Base Belgium)

gathering carrier information

First of all, you will need to gather information about your carrier:

• bundle name : pick a name to identify the profile. For instance : "base_BE"
• Carrier name : the name of your carrier ("base" for instance).
• Supported SIM : "You need to have the MCC/MNC of your carrier handy as well. If you don't know it do the following: Your iPhone is at OS 3.x. Start the Phone app, switch to the keypad and type *3001#12345#* tap the green dial button then. Field Test Application opens on the iPhone. Goto "MM Info" -> "Serving PLMN" and look for "Mobile Country Code" and "Mobile Network Code". If Mobile Country Code is 234 and Mobile Network Code is 15 your MCC/MNC is 23415. If Mobile Country Code is 234 and Mobile Network Code is 6 you have to add a 0 (zero) in front of MNC so your MCC/MNC reads 23406." (source http://www.volkspost.info/ipcc_fw3/).
  A list is provided here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Network_Code (Base codes : MCC : 206, MNC : 20. 20620 for Base). If you still don't find your carrier, google for "your_carrier mcc mnc".

Optional (but usefull)

• Voicemail number (1933 for Base).
• APN for internet surf.
  • APN name (gprs.base.be for Base)
  • APN username : (base for Base)
  • APN password : (base for Base)
• APN for tethering. Check if your carrier require a specific APN.
• APN for MMS
  • APN name (mms.base.be for Base)
  • APN username : (base for Base)
  • APN password : (base for Base)
  • MMSC : (http://mmsc.base.be for Base)
  • proxy : (2017.72.235.1:8080 for Base)

Generate carrier profile

Now that we have information we need, lets generate our profile. You need to go there : http://www.volkspost.info/ipcc_fw3/. For those who are using Base in Belgium, this has already be done. You can download the profile here and skip to the next step.

Download the Configuration iPhone IOS 3.x for Base BE

Please: Read carrefully ALL the warnings and instruction on the generator page!

Enter the values you gathered into the fields and generate the carrier profile.

Applying the profile

• Connect your iPhone to your computer and launch iTunes
• Select the iPhone in iTunes
• shift + clic the update button
  
  
  
• In the window search for the ipcc file you have generated and click "Open".
  
  
  
• You might need to activate the carrier testing option in iTunes.
  • Windows : enter this command at the prompt :
    "%ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1
  • MAC : in the terminal application type in :
    defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE
• You might need to restart your iPhone.

Voila!

Notes :

• If you have some comments, or better Base BE profile, please leave a comment.
• This blogpost has been written using an iPhone 3G running IOS 3.1.3. I don't know if this applies to IOS 4. If you have information about IOS 4 & unsupported carriers, leave a comment. Update: according to the comments, it does not work for IOS 4.x.
• if you have successfully build a profile for your carrier, leave a comment and I'll update this post with you profile.

Big up to:

• Volkpost @hackintosh.org for putting great tools online.
  • IOS 3.x Carrier bundle generator See this post Hackintosh.org
  • IOS 2.x Carrier bundle generator See this post Hackintosh.org
• The Dev Team