If you’ve searched around for “Dell Streak unlock” you’ve probably seen results to unlock it using a Rebel Simcard or some ridiculously priced unlock service where you give them your IMEI number and they’ll give you the unlock code within 24 hours after paying.

Luckily, I stumbled upon this post before I did any of that which told stories of customers who were able to get unlock codes for their Streaks by simply calling AT&T and asking for the unlock code. I gave this a try tonight and it worked!

Here’s what I did:

1. Called AT&T support at 1-800-331-0500.
2. Customer service rep asked me for my wireless phone number and told her I’m not an AT&T customer and I recently purchased a Dell Streak but it was locked to AT&T and Dell support told me that only AT&T has access to the unlock codes (this is pretty much what you’ll get from Dell support, or they might just tell you to buy the “newer” truly unlocked Dell Streak that they just released last month). I also told her that I have my IMEI number ready.
3. The lady on phone has never heard of the Dell Streak before and she wasn’t sure how to get the unlock code for it, but she was very nice and really wanted to help me so she put me on hold while she asked around and look for a way to do it.
4. About 5 minutes later she got back on the phone with no luck but she told me she’s still working on it and will stick around until I get what I need :).
5. After about 20 minutes or so she finally found it! She gave me an 8-digit unlock code and I asked her if she could stay on the line while I try it and she said no problem. I put in a SIM card that I got in the Philippines and when I booted my Dell Streak it said “Network Locked,” so I entered the unlock code and it worked! I don’t get a signal with that SIM though so I couldn’t see the carrier information, but I rebooted again and this time no more prompts to unlock it so it looks like it definitely worked. I also got prompted by the system to re-login to my Google account.

This may involve some luck, though, as not everyone will be as nice and helpful as the person I got so just keep trying and eventually you’ll get someone that will actually help you :).

I’m still waiting for my Froyo 2.2 update, however, as it seems that they’ve only released it for Dell Streaks with baseband version that ends with 00. Hopefully the wait is not much longer. It’s unfortunate that Dell made such a great product but the support is just awful.

Well, at least for now I can finally get rid of my TracFone and get another prepaid service from another carrier (TracFone’s SIM only works on TrackFone phones, it showed “Invalid SIM” on my Dell Streak).