Reccomended Provider for Jailbroken iPhones?

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I currently own an iPhone 4 but I bought mine in Japan so I’m stuck with Softbank.

Since I will be moving back to the states soon, I was thinking about just jailbreaking my phone and perhaps getting a SIM card to use with it…so a few questions

  • how easy is this to do?
  • is there a provider that would provide better rates for 3G access compared to the others? Not sure how the contacts, etc. would work if I try to go down this route…
2

AFAIK, the only provider who can get 3G onto iPhones at this stage is AT&T, but admittedly, I don’t know what band your iPhone communicates on compared to stuff here in the US. It could be that it actually uses T-Mobile’s frequencies, or that no one at all here would actually get 3G onto it (Edge should be doable on either of those two as long as it’s GSM in general, but even that could theoretically be iffy if Japan is worlds apart).

3

Jailbreaking doesn’t necessarily mean a soft unlock will work since if you’ve already upgraded to the latest firmware.

4

The GSM iPhone is the same worldwide.

AT&T is generally the best GSM carrier in the US, but the service greatly varies depending on where you are. San Francisco and New York City suck. Rural areas suck. Most other areas aren’t too bad.

You’re going to have to unlock your phone, not just jailbreak it. I know some countries have laws that require them to unlock your phone if you buy out the contract or whatever, else it’s a bit of a pain in the butt.