Purchasing an iPhone for another carrier

[Snooges]

A canadian here looking to purchase an iPhone since it probably won't be coming north for a while.
I really don't care about the costs, but I do have some questions on activation and cancelation, and how exactly that'll affect the iPhone.

What ID/Credit check is involved with AT&T? Signing up north requires 2 pieces of canadian ID(Passport will work), any restrictions in the states?

Once I activate the iPhone and cancel AT&T's service will that allow me to update my firmware version? I read that after a hardware reset you'll need to reactivate the iPhone, if I enter in my appleID after i canceled already will that cause issues?

Any issues with completing the activation across the border? IE. IP blocks?

i think that's it...

[SouthsideIrish]

Buy it from Apple and you won't have to activate it, then take it back to Canada, unlock it, and drop in a Rogers SIM ands you have your phone. Alternative, is to buy it at an ATT store, tell them it is a gift and you won't have to activate it, then head on back to Canada. You may or may not have to pay duties depending on how long you are in the US and what customs official you have when you cross the border back into Canada,

[Snooges]

But can i unlock the phone without having to activate it first oO?
All the unlock programs i read up on require that you first activate the phone.

[SouthsideIrish]

Hmm...not sure. I think Jesse has one running on Rogers in Canada, let me read the post again, and see what he did.

[SouthsideIrish]

He doesn't say anything about activating it. All he says he did was hack it, and pop a Rogers SIM chip in. If you have to activate it, you could always do it as a go phone. No commitment there.

[Snooges]

Links to info about GoPhone with iPhone?