Hi everybody,
I'm trying to help a friend who has a 3G with a dead baseband. He got it as a gift and has no idea what has been done to the phone. Now we have a 3G running 3.0 that has no signal, no WiFi, no bluetooth, blank IMEI and ICCID. The model number shows that it's the officially unlocked Russian model. Do you guys think that restoring it to 3.1 will update the baseband and since it's an official iphone, it'll get signal? I'm afraid that restoring with iTunes will error out due to the modem's inability to update... Or should I downgrade it to 2.xx?? Since its modem is screwed up I guess downgrading the modem firmware will not be an issue, since it simply ain't there... What do you guys think? Or should I wipe clean its baseband and then update/restore?? What's the best way to do that with a 3G??
Anyway, any piece of advice on how to turn this ipod touch to an iphone is appreciated!! And by the way, it's been a long time since I kicked a phone out of restore mode and I wonder what I should use for that if it gets stuck in restore mode at any stage... Thanks a lot!

So it's an officially unlocked model? You don't rely on any software unlock?
Then go ahead and restore with official 3.1.
In this special case there is no advantage in using any specific iPhone OS.

But since this phone has been seriously tampered with obviously, I wouldn't even trust the model number. I don't think you can get the phone part running again, cause you would need an IMEI for that. And depending on where you live, obtaining a new IMEI could be illegal.
Anyways, I think you're even out of luck flashing the baseband to begin with. Since you don't have any radio service running there must be something wrong with the CommBoard. But, trying doesn't hurt, does it :-)
Good luck!

Yes, I tried DFU restore to 3.1 but the latest pre-9.0 iTunes (8.1.2 I believe) couldn't restore it giving unknown Error 23... Restoring to 3.0.1 failed with the same error. Now it's stuck in recovery mode. I also suspect a hardware problem... I'm gonna try it one last time with iTunes 9 and if that fails too I'll have to bring it back to its previous ipod touch state at least... Anyway, thanks for your input, phoeny!