How do I unlock again my replaced Iphone4s?

Question

Hello,
I bought an unlocked Iphone 4s here in Chile and I used the phone company "Entel". The phone had some problems so while I was on vacations in the USA I went to an apple store and got it replaced. The thing is here in Chile there is a new law that allowes users to switch to different celular companies and keep your phone number. Now some phone are lock to be use with other Sim cards but you can go to your celular company and they unlock it just that easy but since I replaced the phone in USA the IMEI shows that the phone wasnt bought in "Entel" my celular company. I told them all of these and they suggested to contact Apple to get it unlock, but I know know where to contact them to do that.
The worst thing of all, I already switch my phone number to the new company which is "virgin mobile" so the SIM card from virgin mobile has my phone number but I can't use it with my iphone since it says cannot activate blablah. And my old SIM card which has no number in it works so I can still use my phone as an ipod touch.
Hope you can help me because right now I cannot comunicate in anyway, just WIFI. =(
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

hi there,
if the information contained your current phone's IMEI number, this sounds like good news.  The process of unlocking an iPhone consists of four steps:
customer enters necessary information into a special web site of the carrier that the phone is locked to.
carrier evaluates the obtained data and sends a request for unlocking said phone to Apple.
Apple enters the unlock into a database which the phone contacts each time it is connected to iTunes
customer restores iPhone using iTunes once informed that phone has been unlocked by Apple (This information can come as email or by entering the SIM card into phone which then is no longer rejected.)
This process can take anything from a couple of hours to several days
regards, Chris