On Monday of this week we reported on the increasing competition revolving around unlocking the iPhone, to allow you to use it with any telco provider's SIM card.

Just 48 hours ago, then, a rather steep $100 purchased unlocking software that guaranteed to remove the network restrictions imposed by Apple - and we've heard rumours that 15,000 such unlock codes were sold! Apple's in financial bed with AT&T and gets a kickback from every contract, so fully-unlocked iPhones are sure to make Mr Jobs unhappy.

Now, though, that $100 is looking like money badly spent, as a group has released a software-based unlock, which appears to work just fine, for free.

Just download this file, go and have a read of this and this page, summon up the necessary courage, and free your iPhone from the shackles.

$399 now sounds like a better deal, doesn't it?

HEXUS accepts no responsibility for any iPhones that are rendered useless after a failed attempt.