Here’s the list of tools which can communicate with your iPhone’s baseband. Those are Minicom, sendmodem and igsm. They are text-based Unix systems which can send commands to the baseband (or modem) of iPhone. The difference between them is that Minicom needs CommCenter to be disabled while communicating with baseband. Sendmodem and igsm don’t require the CommCenter swith off in order to work properly. They execute the AT+ commands directly from the command line. Let’s take a closer look on each of the tools.

Minicom is a tool cross-platform program which can be used on Unix-based systems. It can emulate ANSI and VT100. ANSI escape sequences are characters that are embedded in the text which is used to control formatting, color, and other output options on video text terminals. Most of the terminal emulators can show text output from a computer that is connected remotely. They also can show text output from local software, as well as interpret some ANSI’s escape sequences. VT100 (video terminal) was made by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Its detailed attributes became the de facto standard for terminal emulators or tty for short. You can read more about this tool here and install it.

Sendmodem – another tool to access iPhone’s baseband/modem directly developed by PmgRiPhone. It uses /dev/tty.debug path and doesn’t require the CommCenter to be turned off to send and receive commands from the baseband. The commands from sendmodem are executed directly from command line. The tool uses standard AT+ list of commands that can be found by following this link. Sendmodem can be used to perform various actions with iDevice’s modem. You can:

• query the baseband for your firmware and bootloader version
• query the phone’s lock state
• query the battery capacity
• etc.

More info about sendmodem in this article.

IGSM is a tool to communicate with baseband developed by Marcio C. Almeida. This simple application allows you to sent AT+ commands to your iPhone easily. It can also be used for countries where the carrier doesn’t set the phone number on the SIM card to set that number. Can be used on iPhone running firmware 2.x or higher. You can also download igsm here and find more info about this tool.

So now you equipped with this three tools. Now you can use each of them and send commands to your baseband.

Also you can read about Minicom. You can use this link to go there. But today I want to introduce you another program for this which is called iGSM.

The new iGSM tool was developed to send AT commands. This tool was created by Marcio’s iPhone Apps and uses /dev/tty.debug without need to disable the commcenter during the process and has function to perform these jobs which means that you don’t need to manually enter:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist

which will unload CommCenter process from iPhone Baseband RAM.

You may hear about Sendmodem tool which has the same possibilities as iGSM and if you would like to use Sendmodem then go here for instruction. But I must tell you that iGSM tool is more powerful then Sendmodem, however they are the same in general.

Download iGSM

You can download iGSM tool using this command:

wget http://www.letsunlockiphone.com/scripts/igsm.zip  unzip igsm.zip

Usually, the iPhone baseband is accessed via minicom which add commands to /dev/tty.baseband. To make sure that minicom functions, the commcenter first must be disabled, after that your can run minicom, and after you are completed with minicom you again have to enable the CommCenter.plist file.

How to run iGSM

Open terminal and navigate to the directory where you have downloaded the igsm file. Then perform this command:

sudo +x igsm

Now you are ready to run the tool. You can see that igsm tool is more convenient. So let’s begin but first look at the meanings of the shortens that you need to issue using this script:

igsm [-p pin] [-c command ... -c command] [-l] [-L] [-u] [-d] [-v] [-r]

-p pin SIM pin (if needed)  -d dump IMEI IMSI …  -c cmd command to be executed (more than 1 is supported)  -l load commcenter  -L list all jobs loaded into launchd  -u unload commcenter  -r reset baseband  -m string modem init string  -M num max lines on any command  -v verbose mode  -vv verbose mode and hex dump  -h this help  -hh extended help

Also with igsm commands to iPhone baseband (modem) can be directly carried out from the commandline. Here below you can see my example of usage igsm tool to get the baseband info for your needs.

Example of usage iGSM to get the baseband info

igsm -c AT+CPBS?   Opened: /dev/tty.baseband   > ATE0 – set echo OFF   < OK

> AT   < OK

> AT+CPIN? – SIM requires PIN ?   < +CPIN: READY   < OK

> AT+CPBS?   < +CPBS: “SM”,34,150   < OK   Done

And that’s it now you have entered your baseband and can see all its info that can be needing for making unlock or see bootloader version or something that can be needed by you from your iPhone baseband.

Also you can see this list soon of AT commands to use it for your needs.