Travel Technology - iPhone 3 - Trip to UK

Hi all!
I have an iPhone 3 given to me by someone who has upgraded.
It was previously used with Fido in Canada.
I am a rookie with all of this Phone Technology, but am trying to get up to speed so, please bear with me... Thanks !!!
I would like to use this phone in the UK in September and do not know where to turn for help!!!
Do I need to have this phone "unlocked" ? If so, who can do this for me?
I have been told that I should buy a Mobile Hotspot, but need some help with that, as I am not sure if this is a good avenue to take!
Can I just go to the local mall and see who will offer the best "package" for the UK?
I currently have an older Blackberry with a Corporate Account (which I dont' really want to use in the UK, if possible) and am using about 2Mb data per day, so I expect this is probably what I will need on the iPhone.
Bottom line... I am most interested in Data Usage in the UK and will try to use Skype for phoning (which will be minimal).
Any help would be much appreciated...
Thanks so much !
Regards, Kevin.

I popped into Carphone Warehouse for a prepaid O2 sim card and it worked almost immediately. It was £10 for the entire 2 weeks I was there; never ran out of data.

http://freesim.o2.co.uk/

Text-and-web was what I used.


Can't help you with the phone unlocking, but you could ask your friend or call into the telco that it was purchased from to ask them to unlock it.

As an iphone user, I have to say that 2 megs/day is very optimistic--especially on an iphone.
If you plan on browsing, e-mailing, using facebook etc., then you'll need about 200 megs for 1-2 weeks. YMMV and you can reduce this usage with wifi, but don't count on it always being around. The biggest data eater is when you use the assisted gps to find your way around. It's super useful though.
I used vodaphone when I was in the UK. They had good coverage and you can top up your sim, if necessary, at the post office.

Question: If I take this phone to an Apple Store... Can they unlock it for me ?

I do not have a SIM Card for it now, but would like to use a SIM as mentioned in this previous post.

Thanks !

Thanks EasterCat.
I am not planning on using the GPS, as we have one in the car.
I have a feeling that the GPS is the largest consumer of data !!!

Regards,
Kevin.

3UK is the best deal for uk data by far 15 pounds for unlimited data for 1 month and i was able to tether also with it car phone warehouse sells the sim they have stores all over greater london also if you want to unlock that phone you can buy an unlock off ebay its not too expensive and it unlocks the phone permanently

I would second going with 3. Their data rates are amazing and the phone coverage itself is pretty good. SIMs are available from 3 stores and Carphone Warehouse (and probably Phones4U but they'll sell you your grandmother as well so you may want to avoid them). The only difficulty I had was finding a store with a MicroSIM in stock - but these are now much more common since there are so many iPhones off contract, waiting for the new version.

As to unlocking, go to any main tourist area and there will be many slightly dodgy looking shops offering to do this.

Apple has to get authorization from your carrier, so you have to ask your carrier. If you're with at&t, you'll have to be out of contract. If you're with verizon/sprint, you'll only get an authorization for an international unlock, but they allow it earlier.
I don't know how dodgy the ebay unlockers are. Make sure that it's not software based, because that is very easy to lose for someone such as yourself.
Question: If I take this phone to an Apple Store... Can they unlock it for me ?

Apple has to get authorization from your carrier, so you have to ask your carrier. If you're with at&t, you'll have to be out of contract. If you're with verizon/sprint, you'll only get an authorization for an international unlock, but they allow it earlier.
I don't know how dodgy the ebay unlockers are. Make sure that it's not software based, because that is very easy to lose for someone such as yourself.

yea of course look at their feedback before you make any purchase but i recently unlocked an iphone through ebay took me 24 hours all i had to do was plug my iphone into itunes and it was unlocked after they emailed me