Is there anyone left who hasn’t found out that the iPhone can only bought with an AT&T two-year contract? I’m sure that there isn’t! But just in case let me remind you. AT&T, the exclusive service provider for iPhone offers three plans. The cheapest plan guarantees 450 anytime minutes along with 5,000 nights and weekend minutes. The second one which costs $79.99 offers 900 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends. The top-level $99 plan means 1350 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends.

But what is that you might not already know is that from the very moment iPhone was launched, it has become the target of some hackers very determined to unlock it. More precisely, their goal was to transform the iPhone into a mobile phone that would work with any mobile carrier. And it seems that after just two months they managed to reach their goal.

Yesterday one of these hackers, a New Jersey teen George Hotz in collaboration with four online colleagues, reached his goal successfully through an array of procedures detailed on his blog.

The operation is fairly long, it involves some technical knowledge and it’s not reachable for a beginner. The highest risk is to definitely damage it during the “process”. The creative hacker placed the decoded iPhone on eBay where it has already reached the $2000 price, compared to $499, the official cost.

Hotz said unblocking the iPhone was the goal of an unofficial competition among self-styled hackers and other technical types following the highly hyped debut of the device.

But there is also a second unlocking solution provided by a so-called iPhoneSimFree group and, as Engadget reported, is a software-only unlock which frees the iPhone to work with SIM cards from any service provider. For full details, please visit Engadget, where there is also an explanatory video.

iPhoneSimFree is offering publications free unlocks as proof of its accomplishment over the next 48 hours, an apparently plans a commercial launch of its unlocking solution within the next week.

It seems like both hacks leave intact the iPhone's many functions, including a built-in camera and the ability to access Wi-Fi networks. The only thing that won't work is the "visual voicemail" feature.

According to a report published last month by Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst one of his reports, AT&T pays a fee to Apple for each iPhone.

"While we do not know the exact details of the agreement, we conservatively estimate that AT&T gives Apple $3 per month (over the life of the 24 month contract) for every iPhone customer already with AT&T and $11 per month for every new subscriber," lead analyst Gene Munster.

Also in July AT&T announced the financial results for the last quarter and it seems the iPhone was a huge success.

iPhone was launched on June 29 and in the last two days of the month AT&T activated 146,000 of the phones. More than 40 per cent of those users were new AT&T customers, the company said. The popularity of the device helped AT&T increase its share in the mobile phone market by 1.5 million customers to 63.7 million, beating out competitor Verizon Wireless to lead the sector. So a public method to unlock the iPhone could mean a potential disaster for AT&T.

Now, my own dilemma is not whether the unlock process will be made any easier or whether the procedure published by iPhoneSimFree is holding water, but how much time will it take for the lawyers hired by AT&T and Apple to sue the hackers and especially under which accusations.

In the past Apple always reacted extremely violently as many times its products have been threatened to be modified by the hackers.

If you still remember, in past years an attempt to transform the Mac OS X that was available only on Intel processors into an operating system that would function on ordinary notebooks was handled very tough by Apple. And if story slipped your attention, let me remember you that shortly after the iPhone was announced, the Apple lawyers sent a “cease&desist” to another creative guy who developed a mobile phone skin that imitated the iPhone interface.

But this time it could be different. There is apparently no U.S. law against unlocking cell phones because in 2006 the Library of Congress specifically excluded cell-phone unlocking from coverage under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"The underlying activity sought to be performed by the owner of the handset is to allow the handset to do what it was manufactured to do—lawfully connect to any carrier," writes the government in explanation. "This is a noninfringing activity by the user... The purpose of the software lock appears to be limited to restricting the owner’s use of the mobile handset to support a business model, rather than to protect access to a copyrighted work itself."

On the moment Apple and AT&T didn’t show any reaction to the “stunts” of Hotz or iPhoneSimFree, but is unlikely that Apple and AT&T will tolerate a decoding iPhone solution to be disclosed on the Internet.

But what will be the concrete measures that will both the companies take is still hardly to anticipate, however the hackers’ future doesn’t seem too bright.

Meanwhile Apple is choosing its partners for the European launch of the craved iPhone. According to the reports, iPhone will be offered by O2 in the UK, Orange in France and T-mobile in Germany.

And this leads us to another question. What impact will have the news of unlock on the Apple’s negotiations with the European partners?