My current cell phone is a T610 from SonyEricsson. I like it a lot. It has Bluetooth. It’s small. I can sync it with my Mac. The battery lasts many days.

I’m on an AT&T plan right now, but my contract has lapsed, so it’s time again to wrangle with the phone companies. Karl and I are going to do a family-style plan, and since AT&T got swallowed up by Cingular, we thought we’d go with Cingular.

So now Cingular wants to sell me a new phone. But I don’t really want one. The phone I have now is fine. Why should I upgrade? The Cingular store salesman says, “You can’t use an AT&T phone on the Cingular network. You must get a new phone.” What he dosn’t say is that I, or just about any AT&T customer, can easily unlock my old phone and restore its usefulness on any GSM network, Cingular or otherwise.

AT&T locked my phone when I bought it. AT&T was then bought by Cingular. So why won’t Cingular unlock it for me? They could even re-lock it onto the Cingular network. Instead, they’re leading their millions of AT&T customers into this scam, fostering a culture of disposable technology, upselling new products when old ones suffice. Cingular treats these old phones like diapers that AT&T shat upon before it ate AT&T.

If the tables were turned and AT&T had bought Cingular, all would be fine with my phone and the Cingular customers would be suffering instead. If I weren’t an engineer with a curiosity about my cell phone works and all its glorious capabilities, I’d probably trust the salesman and cough up another $100.

So, does anyone have a spare T28 unlock cable for SonyEricsson phones?