Bill Proposes Canadian Cellphone Unlocking Rights

SJrX sends in a CBC report that the Canadian New Democratic Party has tabled a bill requiring all cellphone companies to provide unlocked cellphones. (Wikipedia notes, "The party is regarded as falling on the left in the Canadian political spectrum.") This reader adds, "The fact that there is a minority government currently should help this bill's chances of getting passed." "The bill proposes three rules: cellphone carriers would be required to notify customers at the point of purchase whether a phone is locked to work only on their network; they would have to remove such a lock free of charge at any point after the conclusion of the customer's service contract; and they would have to remove it if the customer does not enter into a contract within six months of buying the device up front."

Comments

Unless C-32 goes through

[al3]

"Sure you're free to take this phone to another carrier, just don't circumvent the DRM to do it"

Oh Canada

[elrous0]

Between laws like this, universal healthcare, low crime, etc. I'm considering hiring a coyote to smuggle me and my family across the border. All of the advantages of modern America without all the ultra-right-wing bullshit and wars. I'd pay higher taxes and put up with more snow for that.

Re:Oh Canada

[Genwil]

And our taxes aren't even all that much higher when you add up all your state and local taxes. Plus a study has shown that citizens earning up to $85k/yr get back services worth more than that. We also live longer and do better in almost any social stat you can think of. But not to sound smug: we are far from perfect, and 30% of us seem hell-bent on voting for a party determined to be as Republican as they can.

Re:Oh Canada

[plalonde2]

So you also clearly don't keep health insurance for your family, don't benefit from (in no particular order) police services, fire departments, curb-side trash removal, winter snow removal, labor regulation, environmental regulation, judicial services, etc.

Why are so many people willfully ignorant of what services modern governments pay for from their taxes?

Re:Oh Canada

[MikeBabcock]

Because they're the right-wing nutjobs from the GGP ...

Re:Oh Canada

[SilverEyes]

Out of curiosity, do you pay these private companies directly, or does the government pay them?

Where in Canada do you live?

Isn't the idea of a society that we pool resources for mutual good, even if we don't help everyone all the time?

You're dead-on about the debt though. The Liberals were paying it down, too bad the Conservatives haven't figured out how to do that...

Re:Oh Canada

[dkleinsc]

Sure it does.

- You probably eat at least 1000 meals or so over the course of the year (that's a little less than 3 meals a day). A reasonable guess would be about 5% of those meals would be dangerous to eat, and would result in an average medical bill or last pay of $250 (most would be less than that, a few would be a lot more than that), for a total cost of $12,500.
- Let's say you drive a vehicle that gets 25 mpg, and drive 10,000 miles per year, and are thus purchasing 400 gallons of fuel for a cost of $1000 (that's about $2.50 per gallon). However, the gas station owner bilks you because there's no inspection, so you end up actually paying $1500, so the government inspection just saved you $500.
- For banking, let's say you had a 15% chance of having deposits of $30,000 in one of the banks that failed. That gives you an average loss of $4500.
- For securities, let's go with about a 11% chance that you lose your investment to a con man without regulation, and a 1% chance that you'd lose your investment to Bernie Madoff under regulation. If you invest, say, $40,000, your government just saved you on average $4000.

I'm already above $20K, and not even through the list.

Re:Oh Canada

[elrous0]

No, he's saying that you benefit in many, many ways you don't ever think about. You benefit from prisons keeping killers and thieves away from you, for example. It's not something you see or think of as a direct benefit. But if it were suddenly gone, you would sure as hell miss it.

Re:Oh Canada

[mandelbr0t]

All of the advantages of modern America without all the ultra-right-wing bullshit and wars.

Not really. I have become increasingly distressed at the direction Canadian politics have headed. The only thing saving the politicians from selling Canada to the United States wholesale is this minority government. The problem with this is that it paralyzes the government, and generally lets things be run by big business, which is precisely what is wrong with the United States.

Cue the.....

[Lumpy]

Phone company sympathizers that will claim it hurts business...

wont someone think of the rich CEO's!

Re:Hmm....

[FingerSoup]

Rogers Bought Fido, and merged their two GSM networks. Telus and Bell, who both used CDMA, are in bed together now, and created their own GSM network, so they could get the iPhone. So now, we actually do have a choice where we get our contracts from. The only problem is that the plans are so similar these days, that they all cost about the same for the same amount of minutes, data, etc... If I didn't know better I'd say they were price fixing.... hopefully the new wireless companies (Wind, hopefully soon to be Shaw), will actually do some radical things to pricing that will bring down the incumbents...

Re:Wrong!

[ahankinson]

Funny. That looks familiar.

Re:Good intention, but useless ...

[Cimexus]

You can add Oceania to your list in the second sentence too (i.e. Australia/NZ etc.). Unless you consider that part of Asia (most people here generally don't). But we too are completely standardised on GSM in the same way as Europe etc.

As a regular traveller to North America (both US and Canada), the state of cell phones over there has pissed me off for almost two decades now. Even in the mid 90s, I could take my Nokia brick (GSM) to any other country on earth, step off the plane, and be roaming without issue within minutes. But in the US and Canada, I had no phone coverage at all. Even in the early 2000s, when the US was starting to get GSM networks, I still couldn't get any signal because you guys used some non-standard frequency that most non-American phones couldn't use.

Things have got gradually better each time I have returned to the US though (which I do 2-3 times a year):

~2003: first time I succesfully got a signal using my (Australian-bought) GSM phone in the US. This was mostly due to phones starting to be triband/quadband and hence able to connect to American frequency GSM networks. But sadly, it only worked in LA (I was transiting through LAX). Couldn't get a signal anywhere else in the country that I went to (even large places like Chicago).

~2006: started to get GSM coverage in most major cities now, although still hit and miss, especially in the midwest.

~2008: finally had GSM coverage almost everywhere I went in the US, although there's still some holes (including in some places where there's a decent population).

It's still not perfect though. SMS to overseas numbers still seems flaky in certain areas of North America ... I've had a lot of messages just never make it to their recipients (even though it works flawlessly in every other country). I think this is more to do with inter-carrier agreements and stuff rather than the technology itself though ... the US seems to have a lot of small regional operators, particularly in rural areas, whereas most other countries just have a couple of large networks covering the whole country).