Chile Forbids Carriers From Selling Network-Locked Phones

An anonymous reader writes "As from today, network operators in Chile are no longer allowed to sell carrier-locked phones, and must unlock free of charge all devices already sold to costumers through a simple form on their respective websites. The new regulation came into effect in preparations for the rollout of Mobile Number Portability, set to begin on January 16th. This is one among other restrictions that forbid carriers to lock in the customers through 'abusive clauses' in their contracts, one of which was through selling locked devices. Now if a customer wishes to change carriers he/she needs only to have the bills up to date and the process of porting the number should only take 24 hours."

Comments

An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud it.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA: Chile != China

ROTFLMAO

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[A10Mechanic]

Well, isn't that special. Thanks, Church Lady!

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be able to do this in the U.S, but first you would have to unlock all the paid-for federal politicians.

Based on the chances of that happening, I guess not.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[GameboyRMH]

Chile has a lot of forward-thinking legislation on tech issues. Net neutrality is already legally enforced there.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Bucky24]

Hell that's not even RTFA. That's a failure of basic geography...

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[jadavis]

"...and must unlock free of charge all devices already sold to costumers through a simple form on their respective websites."

You applaud retroactively changing private contracts? For extreme cases, it can be justified, but for cell phones?!

If a country treats private contracts this way, it discourages investment in a major way.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[tixxit]

It's also kind of pointless nowadays. Feature phones are so cheap that you can just toss them if you switch carriers. On the other hand, most people who buy smartphones are contractually locked to their carrier 2-3 years anyways. Why do they even bother with a technical lock? I suspect, at least for my carrier, it is just so they can charge you $50 to unlock your phone if you travel a lot.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean something like "Contracts should be fair for consumers except when it gets in the way of a company making money"? Hell yes, retroactively changing contracts will make companies think twice about burning people.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[mapkinase]

It's "outbreak" only in for United States. Many other developed countries normally use it.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Adriax]

Roll On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[sjames]

Yes. I absolutely applaud it, and so should anyone who wants a healthy market.

As near as I can tell, the claim is that any kind of regulation, including forbidding businesses to mug people in the park to cover shortfalls is claimed to "discourage investment".

Sometimes the public interest calls for less muggings even at the cost of less investment.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[RightSaidFred99]

Doesn't really matter on some networks, as the provider won't let you use non-provider phones on their network.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[nomorecwrd]

Almost any phone can be unlocked instantaneusly from the carrier's web form.... except iPhones... only Apple can unlock their phones... you have to fill a form (by pen at the carrier office) and wait for 15 days for the iPhone to be unlocked.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Taty'sEyes]

depends on how old you are. In the old days we said, "ROTFLMAO", but these kids today dropped the T. Now get off my lawn!!!

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Grishnakh]

You can't do something like this in the US. All the teabaggers and their Republican allies will say it's Communism and that government regulation is wrong. The Democrats will say a few weasel words that appear to support this, but then will either not bother to do anything at all, or will make a lame attempt at passing a law, but when a few Republicans object they'll change the law so that it looks like it's supporting this at first glance, but in reality is actually making things worse and giving giant advantages to the incumbent carriers, while also throwing in a bunch of other unrelated stuff that Republicans want. When people complain, the Dems will say they were "forced" to "compromise".

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[jeffmeden]

The Chairman smiles on your pedantry...

He goofed and thought of China instead of Chile

ROFL *MAO*. Google it, then bask in the pun. kthxbai

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

No, "ROTFL Mao" is still China.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Never happen in the US.
Every carrier would claim how this would stifle innovation, reduce competition, prevent them from expanding or upgrading their networks, force telcomm and layoffs of about 100K jobs and a loss to the US economy of about 100billion dollars a year. In addition, it would be unfair to minorities and illegal immigrants, those living in the inner city, cause an increase in child molestation incidents, raise prescription drug costs, and make illegal drugs more readily available to teenagers, further reduce the quality of our public schools and force the federal and local governments to raise taxes.

Don't push for this in the US unless you want all of the above to happen.

I live near DC. I hear TV and radio commercials related to some upcoming government policy change or decision all the time and they all follow that exact theme.

Getting off topic but for those outside the DC area.. It is surprising the number of commercials that are played on local radio and TV for the joint strike fighter, Boeing, health care, telecomm, network neutrality, cleaning up the hudson, etc. I guess if you can't lobby the pentagon and government officials directly, catch them in their commute waiting in traffic listening to the radio.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[poetmatt]

please. it doesn't affect investment in any fashion. that's just a focus on the false reality that was created here.

locking a phone to a carrier is an effective monopoly given to the carrier on that particular phone. That doesn't create investment, it stifles progress. It is exactly this which has skyrocketed the price of unsubsidized phones from around $500 to almost $800. Don't think people aren't aware of that bullshit.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, now if they only got rid of censoring Tienanmen and other bullshit..

Um, okay.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[wiedzmin]

They must have some sort of law prohibiting lobbyists from being sponsored by evil corporations.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Em Adespoton]

It's not that big a deal... it only affects the entertainment industry. Re-read that quote:
"...and must unlock free of charge all devices already sold to costumers through a simple form on their respective websites."

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[jeffmeden]

If someone else wants to point out the misery in misunderstanding Chile vs China, I am glad to point out the misery in not knowing who Mao is or to a greater extent, an internet-going individual not knowing what ROFL MAO is. Ah well, I have karma to burn anyway.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The law states they can't sell you locked phones. It doesn't mean they can't tie you to their network with a contract for 12 months. Your phone is not locked, but if want to terminate the contract prematurely you will have to pay a fine. So they get their money either way.

Here in Estonia I'm not sure if there is a law against selling locked phones, but they don't sell them anyway. At least 2 of the 3 big carriers don't. I switched to my carrier soon as we rolled out Mobile Number Portability years ago and I'm happy with them. And they offer subsidized phones with a new contract and a limited selections of models to people with an ongoing contract, contract then gets extended.

Since I'm happy with the carrier I don't mind being tied to them I keep buying those discount phones for my stepfather (construction... breaks phone every few months) who has numbers all the networks and they work with each one. Also the people I know keep lending eachother their phone to make a call with their own SIM when the battery runs out. Also works every time.

So you see it really is only a matter of common sense. The business can get their money either way, but this way they aren't pissing anyone off.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

cleaning up the hudson,

WTF! They STILL havent got that 747 out of it?? how hard can it be?

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, well, your stance on government has been made abundantly clear in previous posts:

Even if the ISPs/Telcos have a monopoly and collude to raise the price of communication ... Is that really so horrible? Are we so cheap that we are willing to risk it all by involving the government?
Sure, the e-book practices are bad ... Legislation is not the answer here

You've made it crystal clear that you're happy for things to go up the shit and STILL you don't want to involve government. (Which is just us, "The People".)

If a country treats private contracts this way, it discourages investment in a major way.

Here's a newsflash for you, sweetheart:
Chile just DID treat private contracts that way. And you know what? Private companies will CONTINUE to invest and fight tooth and nail for market share there.
The only difference is that they're not screwing the populace as badly as before.

I think in jadavis' world we should all have our possessions transferred over to a pan-industry monopoly (a la OCP from Robocop) and the population fed just enough to sustain us for work. I apologise to jadavis if the imagery of this last paragraph caused him to get such a massive boner that his dick hurt.

(Captcha was too good to be true: "richer")

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[s73v3r]

Bull fucking shit. This does not discourage anything, except maybe dickish behavior by telcoms.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[phaggood]

No, it was an AirBus 320

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[polymeris]

This is news?
I live in Chile and thought this was standard procedure in the rest of the world. Ignorant me.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[dadragon]

Is that in the US? In Canada they either come unlocked (straight from Apple), or you can get the carrier to unlock them over the phone in 15 minutes.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Their country. Their choice.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Lord Juan]

The government of Hong Kong is independent of the government of China, find that information in a .ch domain and you will have a point.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Lord Juan]

oh, did the truth bother you?

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The government of Hong Kong is independent of the government of China, find that information in a .ch domain and you will have a point.

It's .cn, not .ch (which is Switzerland). And there is no google.cn— going there just links you to google.com/hk. GP's link is the actual Google China link, and has been for almost two years. Those results might still be censored in China, but if so that would be China's government doing the censoring, not Google.

And even when google.cn was still active, I'm not convinced the censorship was quite what people claimed it to be. I remember years ago somebody pointing out that if you searched for "Tiananmen Square" on google.com image search, you got pictures of that kid in front of the tank, whereas the same search on google.cn image search gave you pictures of a beautiful park. However, the thing is, those search results are tailored to a particular audience. If you're an American, probably the only thing you know about Tiananmen Square is that protest, and it's probably the main thing that Americans would search for. However, if you're Chinese, you might actually realize that Tiananmen Square has been around since 1415, and therefore it has a whole lot more history than just that one event in 1989. Therefore, it's more likely that a Chinese person searching for Tiananmen Square might actually be looking for information about the square itself, not specifically just that one event. And, sure enough, if you added the word "protest" or "massacre" to the google.cn search, guess what you'd see? That's right. Uncensored pictures of the kid in front of the tank.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[jadavis]

"As near as I can tell, the claim is that any kind of regulation..."

This isn't just regulating future deals, as most regulations do. This is retroactively changing agreements, just because someone wants it. It isn't even something important, like a land, food, or labor agreement. It's just so they don't have to buy a new phone! I mean, you can get a phone for around US$20 if you really need one.

Laws should be a last resort, not the first tool you always reach for when something isn't ultra-convenient for you.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[cthulhu11]

An unlocked phone that only operates on the band(s) used by a single provider is little different from a locked phone.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please describe this in more detail? Have you done this yourself? Or has anybody you know?

The AT&T website clearly says that the iPhone will never be unlocked even after you contract is up. I'm about to travel and would love to have my iPhone 4 unlocked so that I can use a prepaid SIM from my destination.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[sjames]

Just unlocking the phone isn't changing an agreement. It is ENFORCING an agreement that says the customer is buying the phone. If they're buying it, then they have every right to expect it to be unlocked. The only shame is that the US isn't doing the same and broadening it to cover all consumer hardware.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Dahan]

Okay?

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, really? Or maybe they're, you know, just sensible people. Without a sensationalist attitude towards daily life, maybe they're just more chilled out as a nation? Just a guess...

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[EdgeCreeper]

Especially when you could just look it up on your phone...

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not Google censoring their search results. That's the Chinese government censoring the web. The original claim was that Google censors for the government. Google does not. Google provides complete search results, but the government's firewall blocks those results. Google does not control the government's firewall.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[HappyPsycho]

The rest of the world primarily uses GSM, which only has 4 major bands 850/900/1800/1900.

Not that hard to choose matching bands once a decent number of providers exist. Also with such regulations triple or quad band phones will become popular (dual or single band seem quite rare). In my little Caribbean island where we have only 2 providers we don't use 1900 but the other 3 are in use (higher frequencies for data transfer, lower frequencies for building penetrating cell coverage).

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[jep305]

FWIW, Colombia did something very similar in July. I don't know that they have outlawed selling locked phones, but they do require carriers to unlock them when a user moves his number to a new carrier.

http://vivirencolombia.com/preguntas-frecuentes-sobre-la-portabilidad-numerica-en-colombia/#more-34

Puedo portar mi número y usar el mismo equipo que uso con mi actual concesionario? Solo en algunos casos. Si tu equipo tiene la misma tecnología que utiliza la empresa operadora a la que deseas cambiarte, y se encuentra desbloqueado, es decir sin restricciones de acceso a la red de otros operadores, podrás seguir usándolo.Si el equipo se encuentra bloqueado. Es obligación del operador donante, luego de la confirmación de aceptación de la solicitud de portación, realizar el desbloqueo del equipo terminal.

The last line says: "It is the obligation of the transferring carrier, after confirmation of acceptance of the request for change of carrier, to unlock the end-user equipment." Of course, you can only use the same equipment if it is compatible with the new carrier's technology, but your number is portable regardless, as long as you are willing to provide suitable equipment (or can work out a deal with the new carrier to provide it for you).

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[OneAhead]

Just to be pedantic, even in the US, 2 of the 4 biggest providers (AT&T and T-Mobile) use GSM. The other 2 (who use CDMA2000) are Verizon and Sprint Nextel, with only a slightly bigger combined market share.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[jadavis]

That seems like a question of the customer's knowledge at the time of purchase. I didn't think that the phone being locked to one network was any big secret.

In the US, it seems like the customer would have to know that, because the networks are all different here anyway. If you buy a verizon phone, you know it's only going to work on Verizon. I concede that the situation, expectations, etc., may be different in Chile.

But it still doesn't seem like a new law should affect old agreements. Either the original contract was invalid (e.g. maybe due to misrepresentation of the terms), in which case you don't need a new law to throw it out; or the original agreement is valid, in which case it should continue to be valid.

Re:An outbreak of common sense

[sjames]

They may well know that but face Hobson's choice.

A law may clarify a situation. In this case it says it was never right, and won't be in the future, to lock the phone.

As for the U.S., many phones could work on multiple networks with a firmware upgrade and the carrier's willingness (or forced compliance).

In contract law, where there is any ambiguity, the benefit of interpretation goes to the weaker party in the negotiation. In this case, the contracts also make clear that the customer will own the phone. Ownership strongly implies control. Conflicting terms elsewhere in the contract create ambiguity. Unless the consumer has a multi-million dollar legal team on salary, the telco is the stronger party in the negotiation. In any event, it's not as if the telco is out any money in the deal, they still get paid.

As for knowledge outside of the contract, the record labels are well aware that many people who buy music intend to make copies and spread them around....

Great

[dintech]

This will increase competition between providers as consumers can move to the best deals a little bit more easily. Hopefully other countries will follow suit, but I doubt it.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

if only this could happen in more capitalized countries, where lobbyists all have their corporate sponsors

Re:Great

[Soluzar]

Customers will still be locked into a miminum of a 12 month contract if they are getting a handset at a subsidized price.

Re:Great

[TyFoN]

This is already the status in Norway where I live. That is, it's not illegal to sell locked phones but all of the carriers are using gsm and you can port your phone number to any provider you want free of charge. There are three national networks and about 50 providers that are piggybanking on the large ones as they can by law only charge the smaller providers for the actual cost of running the network. The result is a lot of cheep plans that do not involve buying a phone.
I don't think I have ever bought a provider locked phone and had no quarrels of moving to a new company before I started having my phone paid by my job.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe already has this, and has done since the beginning. You buy your phone and put in a SIM for your chosen network, if you want. You can even use PAYG SIMs that don't expire straight into the latest and greatest devices. Where people come unstuck is believing they're getting a "free" latest version iPhone/Nexus/Whatever when locking into a contract. You want choices? You ain't getting a "free" phone.

Re:Great

[jellomizer]

Competition is usually good.
However Private Industry is usually bad at managing Infrastructure.
Now this could (I am not saying it will... Just a possibility) hurt the customer, as the big names in the area loose a lot of their business and cannot afford to maintain their infrastructure. This will close a good portion of the backbone and with more competition but with smaller competitors none of them will have the resources to make a complete network. So while we can choose carriers based on price or performance. With more competition we could get a case where you need to pay more for service because neither company can scale to the size it really needs without more money, and the service could hinder as they cannot afford to have as many towers as you would like.

The Chilean government probably should need to to support the Cell Towers Infrastructure and equally divide the costs based on number of customers that each company has.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes sense to me though. The provider has to make up the difference somehow. Full price and no-term service or half-price with termed service.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

...and that is exactly why it will not happen here.

Re:Great

[Kenja]

No. It will drive most consumers out of the market as they can not afford the unsubsidized phones.

Re:Great

[gl4ss]

if someone insists on buying with partial payment, that's their problem. but buying on partial payment you can't measure is much worse than that - and that's what carrier locking and discounting is all about.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the device and service billing will be separated. They use strategies such as giving you a discount on the device if you keep the service with them, but you can totally get the service from another company.

Re:Great

[polar red]

sure. my unlocked phone has cost me about 30 € if my phone bill wouldn't be paid by my employer, it would cost me about 10-20 € ...

Re:Great

[Soluzar]

Makes sense to me too. Just means you can't switch whenever you feel like it.

Re:Great

[CrackedButter]

First it's 'lose' and not 'loose'.

Second other countries have solved this problem. Have one company take over and be responsible for the network infrastructure. BT do this in the UK with broadband and wireline. It's not a stretch for this to happen with wireless as well without a detrimental affect on the customer.

Re:Great

[Soluzar]

What exactly do you suggest can't be measured? I don't follow at all.

Re:Great

[Dog-Cow]

Have you driven in most of the US (that gets varying weather)? Government is no better at infrastructure. The commonality to both is that they have priorities that do not include maintenance and upgrades.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is ok to be locked into a contract for getting a handset at a subsidized price. But I never understood why it is legal to also lock this handset to this providers network.

Re:Great

[daem0n1x]

Not in my country, Portugal. Here, locked phones are the norm. Paradoxically, one of the earliest adopters of mobile phones and one of the countries in the world with more mobile phones per person.

The explosion of mobile phones in Portugal can in part be explained by locking. Being able to sell locked phones, the operators gave the phones almost for free and made money on calls. This made it possible for every cat and dog to buy a locked mobile phone really cheap. If calling between operators is too expensive, no problem. Buy more phones locked to the other operators.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it won't.
They can still sell subsidized phone with term.
Just include the difference in the early termination penalty.
With locked phone, many carriers charge a stiff fee, or even refuse, to unlock the phone, even after the term is over.

Re:Great

[Endo13]

I believe he's saying you're still only making a "partial payment" on a locked phone, because the carrier expects to make up the rest of the payment from you paying for more service long-term. This then is the partial payment that really can't be measured.

Re:Great

[Artraze]

Actually, it rather decreases it*. Whereas a carrier (like T-Mobile in the US) could compete with the ability to unlock phones, now all carriers are required to offer it thus eliminating that option as a difference between carriers. And while that isn't itself a bad thing (as either way the customer can get their phone unlocked), quite often these days carriers will add hidden costs as "compliance fees". So even though you can unlock your phone, instead of it being a feature, it's now a cost burden on you, and a regulation burden on the carrier and the government (who must have staff on either side to ensure compliance).

So, while this is kind of nice, the issue, as always, is that the consumer base is too uninterested / uninformed / lazy to really make it important point of competition and instead 'we' get more corporate/regulatory bloat. Woohoo?

*This does nothing about contracts (as well it should not!), so people are still "locked in" if they, well, choose to sign a contract.

Re:Great

[tmosley]

Private industry is bad at managing infrastructure?

Then why are privately owned toll roads in such good repair? Why does our privately owned worldwide system of trade networks work so well? Why does the internet work so well? Why does cellphone service work so well? Why do private urgent package delivery services work so well?

Why are cable monopolies such shitty services? Why do electricity prices keep rising? Why does electricity flicker in a big city like Houston? Why did sewage used to back up into my house before I moved into the country? Why to public roads have potholes everywhere, and seem to always be under construction?

Oh, that's right, apologists for the state ignore all evidence when making their dumb theoretical assumptions.

Re:Great

[oh_my_080980980]

Yes I have, and yes the Government is good at infrastructure when you don't have jackasses cutting funding for maintaining it.

Re:Great

[tmosley]

Huh? Boost Mobile doesn't subsidize their phones, and there are plenty of models available for under $20. Hell, you can get a smartphone for $100.

Re:Great

[Carewolf]

Selling locked phones might be the norm, but unlocking them should be perfectly legal if Portugal follows EU law (which I assume they do). In fact you can unlock GSM phones yourself if you know how.

Re:Great

[Carewolf]

Makes sense to me too. Just means you can't switch whenever you feel like it.

I don't think you understand. You CAN switch whenever you feel like it, but you might have to keep paying the old service minimum fee until the contract runs out, but the phone can always be changed to a different service.

Re:Great

[nomorecwrd]

That is incorrect. You can take your number to any carrier you want... if you've got credit for buying a phone, then you still have to pay for it.
You sign two, independent, contracts one for the phone service (that by law you can end anytime you want), and another one for the leasing of the phone.

Greetings from Chile ;-)
(somebody turn off the heat please!!!)

Re:Great

[117]

Here in the UK, the standard is for all phones to be supplied network-locked (unless you buy a SIM-free handset from a non-mainstream supplier). I believe that retailers are obliged to provide a non-locked handset if you specifically ask for one, but they typically get around that by not having them in stock - they rely on the facts that most people a) don't know they can get an non-locked device if they ask for it, or b) don't want to wait for a non-locked device to come into stock.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't measure in advance what you will actually need. I'm using a smartphone in Italy without a contract. I pay whenever I run out of credit. Voice/SMS and data are separate. I usually pay 10 € per time for voice/SMS but I use them little (skype on the computer helps a lot) so I think I average at 5 € per month. The fee for data is separate and it lasts 30 days. It's 9 € each month per 1 GB but I seldom approach 400 MB. WiFi and the PC help again. If I don't want to pay for the data (maybe a vacation out of Italy) I suspend the service and start again when I need it. I see subsidized offers for my phone starting at about 20 € per month, some advance payment, 23 or 30 months. I'm not saving much (if I actually save anything) but with this arrangement my phone is mine, I'm not hostage of the provider and I know that I can stop paying at any time with no extra costs.

By the way, If I want to switch to another operator I get a new SIM and my number is ported to it.

Re:Great

[FireFury03]

Have one company take over and be responsible for the network infrastructure. BT do this in the UK with broadband and wireline. It's not a stretch for this to happen with wireless as well without a detrimental affect on the customer.

I'm amused that you cite the clusterfuck that is BT as an example of "without a detrimental effect". As an end user, having to use a service provider with whom you have no contract can get really messy - if something breaks on OpenReach's network then your only contact is the ISP (who isn't responsible for the thing that's broken). Playing Chinese whispers with the ISP rather than having the ability to talk to (and if necessary, pressure) BT directly is not the way to get things fixed quickly.

Re:Great

[YoopDaDum]

Europe already has this, and has done since the beginning. You buy your phone and put in a SIM for your chosen network, if you want.

Emphasis on "if you want". It's true that it is legal in Europe to buy an unlocked / SIM free phone, and then you can use any carrier SIM bought separately to access any network. Which is what I do BTW.

But it is also true than in most countries most people buy subsidized phones. Where I leave until recently you didn't have "SIM only" contracts, so even when using your own phone you had to pay the "phone tax" included in your contract, and this goes a long way in explaining why subsidized phones are dominant. After all if you pay anyway, you might as well get the subsidy...
It's starting to change, and you can now get cheaper "SIM only" plans. And this will boost the unsubsidized model I hope, because that way it's cheaper for you and you don't have all the operators "improvements" on your phone ;)

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

so, freedom is slavery? ignorance is strength?

Re:Great

[Alphathon]

I'm not sure what you consider mainstream, but I'm fairly sure Carphone Warehouse only sell unlocked phones (i.e. they don't sell any that are locked).* Certainly it's the norm for phones to be locked when bought on contract from the networks (carriers), but unlocked phones aren't as uncommon/difficult to get hold of as one might think.

*I may be mixing it up with Phones 4 U, not that it really matters, the point still stands regardless of which it is - I'd consider both to be fairly mainstream retailers.

Re:Great

[kukulcan]

In Portugal, locked phones are the norm, but according to a recent law (which i believe is an EU directive), the carriers must unlock the phone when the contract ends, free of charge. Furthermore, during the period of the contract the customer can request the unlock for a reasonable fee (which last time i looked was indeed reasonable).

I believe this is a fair state of affairs, as the phone are effectivly subsidized.

Re:Great

[sjames]

Surely you don't think the subsidy is a givaway program. It's called subsidized but what it really is is a time payment plan where you have to pay even if you don't get a new phone. 100% of the cost is passed to the consumer one way or another. So they ALREADY are affording an unsubsidized phone, they just buy it on credit and make hidden payments each month on their cellular bill.

If people actually see the price of the phone and what their monthly payments are, it will put downward market pressure on the cost of a new phone.

Re:Great

[donstenk]

Same thing in Italy, I do not believe sim-locking is allowed, and for sure all phones I bought in recent years were unlocked, including my iPhones. I know, as I like to change SIM when travelling.

My contract however, is another story, and contains a clause for a hefty penalty for changing provider before 36 months, so yes my phone is unlocked but I am paying around 3600 euro for it (including practically unlimited calling minutes also abroad). So my next iPhone, by my own calculation, will be the iPhone 5s.

Re:Great

[Luckyo]

Absolutely not necessary, this is total fear mongering at its finest (I suspect you have been successfully brainwashed on the issue by your local providers who want to keep their monopoly). We have a great example of this in almost all if not all Nordic countries. You can change providers while keeping your number, unlocked phones available essentially everywhere (and even contracted phones are often unlocked, because you're still bound by contract if you want a subsidy).

This works because infrastructure costs are paid for by customers. Company maintaining the infrastructure is legally required to lease the infrastructure to smaller companies at REASONABLE costs. Reasonable costs mean (legally) what it actually costs to maintain and expand/upgrade the network (as necessary). Company that's leasing is also not allowed to prioritize its own traffic over that of competitors leasing the network. As a result, everyone including the company maintaining the network pays (or more accurately charges its clients) for network maintenance and then their own margin and potential value-adding services come on top of those costs.

This results in actually working competition, very cheap prices and good infrastructure, all at the same time, as essentially any small company can enter the market and compete on margins or value-adding products, while paying the same infrastructure costs (per usage) as everyone else, including the infrastructure owner. Infrastructure owner obviously has a small competitive advantage as it can still price network lease slightly higher then what it actually costs to maintain, but pushing for profit here is risky. If you start getting noticeable profits out of network lease overpricing, you risk significant penalties which are just not worth the marginal advantage this would give (before it gets noticeable).

It's worth noting that Nordics are among the least densely populated countries on the planet so infrastructure costs here are generally higher then in the rest of the world.

Re:Great

[taiwanjohn]

Where I live (Taiwan) we have "unlocked" phones, so I was surprised when my dad (in the USA) finally got a cell phone, and I discovered that it was possible to have a cell phone without a removable SIM card.

Me: "Let's try your SIM card in my phone, and see if that fixes the problem..."
Him: "My what?"
Me: "Your SIM card... you know, that little chip-thing that they put in your phone when you buy it..."
Him: "Uuuhhh.... what?"

I still find it hard to wrap my head around this notion of buying a phone that's tethered to a particular provider.

[taiwanjohn: posting as AC to preserve mod-points]

Re:Great

[AngryDeuce]

Your ignoring the fact that locking the phones in directly prevents competition. Once the people are free to buy a phone through one carrier and switch any time they want to another, assuming there won't be massive collusion between the carriers, they are going to be competing to get people onto their service. This competition will drive prices down. Even if hardware is sold at retail, the cheaper rates through the carriers will offset that because it will be trivial to move to a competitor. Either way it's win-win for the consumers.

Personally, I have no problem paying retail price for a phone if it means I can get service through whoever I want.

Re:Great

[CrackedButter]

Parent was talking about the price, I wasn't talking about the network quality. As a BT customer I do share your pain. If it wasn't for my roommate I would be on 3 mobile broadband and Uni wifi.

Re:Great

[pjt33]

I bought a locked phone from the Carphone Warehouse last week. Samsung Galaxy Ace, locked to 3, with 15 quid PAYG purchase required. OTOH the phone was still 85 quid cheaper than buying it unlocked. If I can figure out how to unlock it for free (the standard technique for the Ace doesn't work) I'll be able to use it as a phone, but if not I'm not too fussed because I really bought it for use as a PDA.

Re:Great

[zmooc]

Bullshit. Europe has the exact opposite: a law that makes laws that make SIM locks illegal illegal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock#Belgium

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey man calm down. You just happen to live in a shit country.
But what do you expect, you have almost no taxes and what little there is is used to prop the military industrial complex. Of course infrastructure around you is crumbling to pieces, but not all countries are in this dire condition. Surprising isn't it ? ^_^

Re:Great

[Chaos Incarnate]

That's not really related to having locked phones - that's because he has a CDMA phone. You could have a GSM phone with SIM card and still have it be locked.

Re:Great

[mbkennel]

"Then why are privately owned toll roads in such good repair?"

Generally, it's because they are new and are only in good shape when they have to compete directly against non-toll roads going to the same destination.

in sum: works well when there is strong competitive substitutability and no technical lock-in.

"Why does our privately owned worldwide system of trade networks work so well?"

Because they are in an industry which has strong competitive substitution, there are universal non-proprietary technical standards, and
foremost, they are beneficiaries of huge government investments in regulated infrastructure like ports, roads, rail and airports. One tanker or container ship is as good as another.

in sum: strong competitive substitutability and no technical lock-in.

"Why does the internet work so well?"

Brutal competition, and the inability to apply proprietary standards, like with shipping carriers. This is a historical artifiact of the initial investment & technology being developed by government.

in sum: strong competitive substitutability and no technical lock-in.

"Why does cellphone service work so well?"

It doesn't, except where there is strong competitive substitutability and no technical lock-in.

"Why do private urgent package delivery services work so well?"

Because they aren't providing infrastructure, they are beneficiaries thereof.

in sum: strong competitive substitutability and no technical lock-in.

When the infrastructure does not offer competitive substitutability or there is technical lock-in, it is very lucrative and undesirable for private entitites to run it, without intrusive and constant regulation.

Re:Great

[andydread]

. Full price and no-term service or half-price with termed service.

Full price and no-term service or half-price up-front and the balance paid through termed service

Fixed it for ya

Re:Great

[Phillip2]

Networks are required to unlock phones, although they are allowed to recover their initial subsidy. The carriers state what their unlock policy is, and in general, if a phone is more than 1 year old, they are likely to do this for free. If they do not, or charge an excessive unlock fee, you can complain to the government regulator.

Most networks try not to tell you this, however. For instance, while looking for my phone I asked in a Virgin store what the unlock fee was: "we don't unlock phones" -- "OFCOM says you do", I replied. "Oh., what I mean is we don't unlock phones in store".

In the end, I bought a SIM free, unlocked phone, and a phone free SIM -- about the same cost as a locked phone and an unlock fee. My old phone (which was Vodaphone-locked) I had unlocked for free, took about 10 minutes. I now use it as a second phone when travelling for either my home SIM or a local, although, in practice at least in Europe, EU regulation means that buying a local SIM is often not worth the effort now.

A nice example of where government regulation can defeat a failed "free" market.

 

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Was going to respond about cherry picking and all that, but meh. It's tmosley.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Expansys. also a good source for unlocked phones.

What is stupid in the UK is 12 or 24 month contracts, those are very very illegal in many EU countries, in some the law is 6 months MAXIMUM.

Another thing the UK beaches in EU LAW is Warranties, in the EU its 2 years by LAW, UK only does 1 year on many things. BREACH OF EU LAW.

Re:Great

[Alphathon]

Hmm, it would seem that I'm misinformed then (or perhaps simply out of date).

Re:Great

[GORby_]

Reading is an art...
Bundle discounts (phone + contract) with subsidized phones are deemed illegal. The SIM lock ban is still in place.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

My sentiments exactly.

Also, MNP (Mobile Number Portability) as it is called in India has really helped the end customer.

The most common need to change is lack of connectivity in a new area.

But as others point out, not everyone changes numbers. There is a charge to changing number. Plus your phone is down for a day or two, the new provider doesn't have identical plans (data and tariff) and so on.

So, practically, most people stick to one provider (carrier) unless there is a compelling need to change.

OK

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

It is my understanding that in the UK most mobile phones are locked while being sold subsidised by the network provider ,either directly or through re-sellers.
However at many independent phone shops any phone can be unlocked within a few seconds (for a say GBP10.00 fee)
These shops have a collection of interface leads for any specific make/range of phone + a PC with unlocking software.

When Chiles unlocked requirement would be imposed in the UK ,phones would (highly likely) be more expensive, although there would be even more competition.
Within the EU roaming is now a lot cheaper than before . Perhaps the EU parliament could also enforce unlocked' phones, such that travellers (when visiting outside their home country) can use their phone with any Pay-As-You-Go SIM.
This would be another good move towards a less 'locked-in more open Society

Highlandham in the north of Scotland ( a happy Linux = open source software ,user)

Wow

[Bert64]

Legislation which actually benefits consumers instead of large corporations, very good...

Locked cellphones are abusive and totally unnecessary, you already have existing contract laws to ensure that someone continues paying their bill for the duration of the contract term so there's really no reason to try and lock handsets too.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm glad THIS sort of blatantly anti-job-maker legislation won't ever happen in the good ol' US of A! You won't hear us clamoring for such a violation of corporate* rights and freedom!

*: Hallowed be their almighty names.

Re:Wow

[Kenja]

Unclear as to how forbidding consumers from being able to get a low cost cell phone in exchange for a carrier lock in is bad. Do you really think Chileans are going to pay the 400-600 USD an unlocked/unsubsidized phone costs? Guess what? You can buy an unlocked phone in the US right now. Apple sells them on their web site. The vast majority of people would rather pay less money for a locked phone.

Re:Wow

[polar red]

The vast majority of people would rather pay less money for a locked phone.

... and pay the difference in their phone bill, because they can't count. Locking the phone does not make the phone magically cheaper !

Re:Wow

[Rising Ape]

How does the lockin stop a phone costing that much? It simply shifts the method of payment from an upfront cost to one spread over the length of a phone contract or more.

I assume you don't think we should still have to use a landline phone rented from the phone company rather than bought, do you?

Re:Wow

[frisket]

Amazing how the population of the USA has been brainwashed into thinking that the carrier lock is in exchange for a low cost.

The low cost is in exchange for a term contract. The carrier lock is just US industry's 1950's mentality kicking in. In principle, it's very little different from the proprietary lock-in we see in software.

Re:Wow

[geek]

I can buy an unlocked phone but it does not reduce the cost I pay monthly by one cent. If I buy a locked phone I get 400-500 off the price of the device and my monthly bill stays the same.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out which road to take here.

Re:Wow

[MXPS]

The biggest problem with the majority of the population is their infatuation with credit and paying for good later. A good amount of people live well above their means and buy luxury items they have no business owning. By spreading the payments over a long (2 year) term, people believe as if they can afford more than they could if they were pay the $400 upfront. We see this every day and the large corporations know exactly how to exploit this mentality and take advantage of the ignorance some people. We saw an extreme measure of this mentality bring this country basically down to its knees with the sub-prime lending disaster.

Re:Wow

[king neckbeard]

The costs are subsidized by a contract, not the phone being locked in If the phone isn't locked to a certain carrier, once that contract is over, the phone is useful on other carriers, so there's competition on your phone bill, which tends to bring it down lower.

Re:Wow

[HornWumpus]

Yes it does. But you need to change to a prepaid plan and provider. In the USA you also need to worry about frequencies and compatibility.

$40/month unlimited talk/text/data.

Re:Wow

[zazzel]

Actually, there is economic reason to lock customers' handsets to a certain network.

Providers want to attract customers by selling highly subsidised handsets. They can only do so if the subsidies will subsequently be paid back during the contract term. Now, we have two models: model a) high monthly cost, "usable" contract (unlimited airtime etc). Not a problem, the providers WILL get their money back. b) low fixed costs, high per minute charges. This is where a SIM- or netlocked phone becomes necessary. I know many people who will get one of these contracts, cash in the high subsidies (the phone), then unlock the phone and use it with *another* contract.

So, while I would never want to buy a sim- or netlocked phone, there IS a basic rationale for this kind of behaviour.

That being said: Were the Chilean companies abusing this possibility by locking in *every* handset sold? Here (Germany), providers are mandated to remove the SIM- or netlock free of charge after the contract has expired (usually 24months).
 

Re:Wow

[Samalie]

Actually, apprently it does take a genius, because you don't get it.

If you buy an unlocked phone, it costs you more than a subsidized phone, without a doubt. But carrier-locking a phone doesn't change the fact that it is a subsidized phone, it just makes it useless to you when you have completed your contract.

The carrier-lock doesn't hold you to your contract. Your fucking contract holds you to your contract, with a penalty for early termination.

Nobody is suggesting that you can't still get a subsidized phone in this plan...just that you, as the consumer, get a unlocked phone and a contract.

Carrier locks are anti-competitive and does harm to the consumer.

Re:Wow

[petermgreen]

Do you really think Chileans are going to pay the 400-600 USD an unlocked/unsubsidized phone costs?

Not all phones are that expensive you know and besides customers pay for their phones one way or another, it's just a case of whether they do it explicitly or whether it is hidden in the cost of a cellphone contract.

I think there are two distinct but intertwined issues here

1: allowing carriers to offer subsidised phones in exchange for signing up to a 1-3 year contract.
2: allowing those same carriers to lock the subsidised phone so that even after the contract expires you are still locked in unless you get a new phone

When theese two factors are both present customers are basically forced into paying for a new phone every 1-3 years whether they actually want one or not since moving carrier would mean getting a new phone and your existing carrier has little motivation to lower prices for a customer who can't move without signing up to another phone contract with hidden phone purchase plan. This is hugely wasteful as huge number of mobile phones are made that people wouldn't buy if they had to pay for them directly.

If the government allows 1 but not 2 and assuming the phone networks are technically compatible* people can still get a "subsidised" phone but when their contract expires they can take that phone to any provider. This in turn gives the providers and incentive to offer and compete on cheaper "sim only" phone deals for the newly freed up customers. Phones will get used until people actually want/need to buy a replacement rather than being replaced on an arbitary schedule set by the carriers.

* the US has the additional problem that it's mobile phone networks are a mess of two competing sets of standards (GSM/UMTS verses IS-95/CDMA2000) so unlike most other places even if artificial barriers to taking your phone with you were removed your options for moving would still be limited.

Re:Wow

[jeffmeden]

I can buy an unlocked phone but it does not reduce the cost I pay monthly by one cent. If I buy a locked phone I get 400-500 off the price of the device and my monthly bill stays the same.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out which road to take here.

This is exactly where the problem is in the US. Everyone is eager to extoll the virtues (or lack thereof) of subsidized handsets, but few people really know what is on the table. You could, with your unlocked phone, go to a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) and pay roughly half as much as you do on the "big three" for voice minutes, txts, and data. But how many people even know that? Most just assume that their only option is to keep paying the big network operators and see no benefit in owning a phone that has no strings attached to it.

For example, if you are on Verizon you can get the *exact same network* and use the *exact same phone* and buy a plan with unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, and 500MB of data for less than half the price of a comparable plan (and have no contract), by switching to PagePlus Cellular (google it). No, I don't work for/with/own part of them, but I am familiar with the landscape of wireless providers and I can confidently say that if more people knew about their product (and other companies like them), the big three would be severely scared.

Re:Wow

[Orphis]

Your operator should make about the same amount of money from a contract with or without a phone. But here's what really happen in your case: If you've bought a phone from them, they will get : $contract_price - $contract_real_cost - $phone_credit If you've bought an unlocked phone, they will get : $contract_price - $contract_real_cost The difference is that you still pay a phone credit even if you've bought your phone separately, which is highly abusive. Due to the pressure from another new operator soon on the french market, some french operators are trying to be more competitive as the new one will probably slash the price (as they did when they entered the ISP market). For the french operator SFR for example: If you buy the phone unlocked from them or use an unlocked phone you already have, you'll get a low contract price each month that can be lowered by signing for a year or two. If you buy a locked phone from them, you'll pay a high price each month. But when your initial contract ends, you'll pay the same price as if you had an unlocked phone in the first place. The cumulated price per month is a little higher (not too much) than what was deducted from the price of the phone. You can see it as a credit that lasts over the contract duration with a small interest for the operator. And this is the fairest that it can be. The phone and the contract each have a cost and you know what you pay. Also, due to the french law, anybody can ask to have his phone unlocked. It's free after 6 months, you have to pay if you want to do it before (I've seen up to 100 euros for an iPhone). And if you had terminated the contract for some good reason before the due date or did not unlocked the phone and switched to another operator, you can still call the customer support and have it unlocked. It's not as great as it is in Chile, but it's kind of reasonable, don't you think ?

Re:Wow

[punker]

I disagree. I've got a $30/month prepaid plan, about 1/2 the cost of when I was on a 2yr contract tied plan. I did buy my phone (a used phone), so my phone subsidy cost is about $5-10/month (based on how long I use phones and how much I will pay for my next phone). In my opinion the contract in fact brings a *higher* monthly cost, in exchange for the lock in and phone subsidy.

Re:Wow

[sjames]

Unlocking the phone doesn't tear up the contract terms. The customer would still be under contract for the duration (or pay the termination clause).

Re:Wow

[jeffmeden]

Actually, apprently it does take a genius, because you don't get it.

If you buy an unlocked phone, it costs you more than a subsidized phone, without a doubt. But carrier-locking a phone doesn't change the fact that it is a subsidized phone, it just makes it useless to you when you have completed your contract.

The carrier-lock doesn't hold you to your contract. Your fucking contract holds you to your contract, with a penalty for early termination.

Nobody is suggesting that you can't still get a subsidized phone in this plan...just that you, as the consumer, get a unlocked phone and a contract.

Carrier locks are anti-competitive and does harm to the consumer.

The big thing is, by promoting subsidized phones and contracts, carriers can get away from the dread of having a significant contingent of customers using inferior equipment and thereby cramping their style (like we saw with the analog/digital switchover). The newer the handset, the more likely it is to be well-behaved on the network and thereby keeps the costs of the carrier down both in network traffic/compatibility and in tech support. Mix that in with carriers that gleefully "compete" with handset availability instead of cost or plan options, and voila you have a horribly stifling system where the carriers basically sell whatever phone they want, at a good enough profit, STILL lock customers into contracts despite the fact that the phone is locked in to their network anyhow, keep them paying even if their contract lapses, and for a big finish they tease them into a "great" new phone at a low price with the premise of "why not?" so they can do it all again.

The sad thing is, this is the system that consumers in the US have eaten up without flinching for almost 20 years. We get the cellular marketplace we deserve, after all.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Go with a prepaid carriers. Unlocked GSM smart phone can be 30-50 a month, not 60-80, when you buy them outright.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the proprietary lock-in we see in health care (your employer provides it, you can't change it, and if you leave the job for any reason you lose it).

Re:Wow

[AngryDeuce]

Meanwhile, SOPA will speed it's way through congress with all it's job killing regulations intact, because job killing regulations don't apply to the internet apparently...

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, SOPA will speed it's way through congress with all it's job killing regulations intact, because job killing regulations don't apply to the internet apparently...

How? It's clearly in support of the job-makers! Job-makers make jobs! Hence, this is clearly in support of making jobs! The smart people on Fox News told me so!

Re:Wow

[andydread]

I can buy an unlocked phone but it does not reduce the cost I pay monthly by one cent. If I buy a locked phone I get 400-500 off the price of the device and my monthly bill stays the same.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out which road to take here.

It does reduce the cost on T-mobile. AT&T and Verizon are taking advantage of the general ignorance of the population. IF you keep a phone with AT&T and Verizon after your contract has ended then you are in effect purchasing your phone all over again. They do not remove the cost of the phone from your payments as T-Mobile does. In this case what your are doing is allowing them to steal from you. Believe this you will not get $400-500 of the price of any phone in the USA. THe most you typically get is about $375 off up-front which you will pay back through out the life of the contract of if you exit the contract early. Why do you think they charge $375 for "early termination fee"? Look at it this way. if the phone is $199 up-front then you will be paying at least $574 for the phone throughout the life of that contract or you will be paying $574 for the phone if you leave that contract early. If cost of the phone to the carrier is $675 then you will be paying $299 up front and $375 from your monthly bill over the life of the contract. You are absolutely not getting anything off the price you are simply paying for it through your monthly payments. AT&T and Verizon hides that cost in your montly payments.

Re:Wow

[Sir Mal Fet]

The nice thing about how the law has impacted the market is that NO company even thought about selling the phones at full price. Under the new law, you either receive an unlocked phone at a subsidized price by signing an 18-month contract, or you buy an unlocked, provider free phone. In case you want to switch providers mid-contract, you can: a) pay a penalty fee (which is more or less the remaining price of the phone considering how long you've been on contract), or b) give back the phone. I don't think it's a bad deal at all.

Re:Wow

[Sir Mal Fet]

Thing is, if you already own a smartphone and you hire one of those plans, then the price is exactly the same as if you also had a phone tied up.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference between USA and China? The Chinese government tries to brainwash their people, the American corporations brainwashed their people a looong time ago.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You really think you are paying less don't you?
You seriously think that locked smart phones only cost what you pay up front... well I'd like to welcome you to the real world my deluded friend. Not only do they charge you for the full price of your phone over the period of your contract but (with the noted exception of T-Mobile) they continue to charge you even after the phone has been paid for.

T-mobile tells you how much the phone is and how long it will take to pay it off. Then drops that amount off your bill once it is paid for.

its about time

[ganjadude]

oh wait, this is chile, I almost thought for a second that we did something right here in the states, I should have known better.

Re:its about time

[toutankh]

Yeah, if only all western countries followed the example...

Re:its about time

[bernywork]

In Europe and Australia, you are tied financially to the carrier. If after a week of a 12 or 18 month contract you want out, you can ask for them to unlock your phone and they will normally do it, you port away, they will give you a bill for the remainder of your contract.

Some carriers will ask that you pay the bill before the unlock (Change from monthly billing to pay as you go) but a lot of them will unlock first.

Re:its about time

[Plunky]

Some carriers will ask that you pay the bill before the unlock (Change from monthly billing to pay as you go) but a lot of them will unlock first.

Since at any time during the contract the phone belongs to you then I don't really see why they should be allowed to lock it to their own network. If you want to use the phone with another network it is none of their business, surely? It's your phone after all and no matter what you do with it, you are committed to paying them the full monthly amount your contract states for the remaining contract duration or until you arrange to cancel it (this will likely involve a buy out, on their terms).

The network lock is gravy for them, since they can freely sting you for any extra calls you make outside your contract terms, and you have no easy way to avoid that. Further, since they have so much power that they are offering contracts with no way for you to negotiate the terms, it certainly makes sense that the government should prevent them from abusing it in this way.

Re:its about time

[Shinobi]

Maybe in some european countries, but in Sweden, all phones except the iPhone(unless they've changed that, haven't really paid attention to it) are unlocked, meaning you don't have to pay or even make a phone call to have it unlocked, you just swap SIM and off you go. You're still tied to the contract to pay for the phone, but no need to unlock it.

Point in case, one of my phones is tied to a carriers contract, yet when I go abroad, I just buy a pre-paid SIM in that country and use that to call or surf without roaming charges.

Summing up, european countries aren't the same homogenous market that the US is.

Re:its about time

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you want to unlock it without terminating your contract? I bought this phone, I should be able to lend it to a friend whose battery just died and still wants to use his own SIM.

Re:its about time

[sjames]

I would like to see the credit payments for the phone and payments for service legally separated. To make sure there's no cheating, legally cap the termination fee to be whatever remains on their declared portion for the phone itself (so they aren't out anything if you terminate). Require them to allow the customer to take one without the other for any offered contract.

Re:its about time

[bernywork]

Depending on the contract, while you might be in physical possession of the device, if you have just walked out of a store without paying for it (Signed a contract though) I can't think of anywhere in the western world where a court would consider it "Your property".

If you cancel the contract then you are basically doing a "buy out" as you mention. This is what I'm referring to in your quote of my post. Until you have "bought out" your contract, then you haven't completely paid for the device.

You do read your contracts don't you? If you are willingly making calls outside of your contract and this is a problem, simply, don't! If this is such an issue for you, lodge a complaint with the carrier and ask for it to go to dispute resolution. At this point, they would normally settle then go through that as it will cost too much or complain to whatever Government based consumer rights group you have in your country. Looking at your previous posts, you're in the UK:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Yourconsumerrightswhenbuyinggoodsandservices/DG_195147

A complaint to the Ombudsman (CICAS) costs the carrier money; they will go to dispute resolution and drop rates to prevent you from doing so.

Re:its about time

[bernywork]

The carriers make WAY too much money out of it as they know that the price of providing you that service in 18 months time is going to be less than half what it is when you sign your contract. At the end of the contract is the time that they make the most money out of you, not at the beginning of the contract when you are paying for the handset + airtime, aside from it being cheaper for them to provide you the service at the end of the contract (Moore's law and all that)

Re:its about time

[bernywork]

In Europe, I haven't had problems with that in the past. A lot of the phones I've had on contract have come unlocked, others will be unlocked with a call to the carrier (Usually when I'm going away for a month or two and don't want to roam). I still owe them for the contract, but unlocking the phone hasn't been an issue for them.

Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great news. Can someone unlocked a US-based iPhone in Chile?

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Miamicanes]

> Can someone unlocked a US-based iPhone in Chile?

You'd be wasting your time, if the intent is to use it in the US.

A non-Sprint iPhone will never work on Sprint as a customer phone (but can roam on Sprint if your carrier has agreements with them). Sprint just won't allow it, period.

A non-Verizon iPhone will never do EVDO on Verizon, even if you can get it to limp along with CDMA2000 voice and 1xRTT.

A non-AT&T iPhone will almost certainly never do HSUPA on AT&T, and would almost certainly cost way more than just buying an AT&T iPhone.

In theory, an unlocked iPhone could be used with T-Mobile, but (drumroll, please) will never do anything better than EDGE. There's no hard technical reason why an AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon iPhone can't do 1700/2100 HSPA+ on T-Mobile (their MSM6600 chipset is certainly capable of it), but an an end user you'll never, ever get it to work because the radio firmware is separate, with its own heavily-encrypted bootloader, and no iPhone sold anywhere on earth has 1700/2100 HSPA+ enabled in its radio modem firmware.

It's sad. Apple basically has one hardware design for all of its iPhones, but the three US models are intentionally as non-interoperable with each others' networks as their firmware can make them be.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[flaming error]

Yes. I'm sure somebody can.

If you meant to ask if AT&T will follow this Chilean law, then I'd say you'd sooner get Disney to endorse the Pirate Party.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Miamicanes]

Just to add, even if a US judge were to block carrier SIM-locking, it would be almost meaningless in the US due to the way Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T run.

Sprint's network will literally refuse to talk to a phone that attempts to identify itself as a subscriber phone with a MEID that isn't in Sprint's official database of Sprint-branded phones.

Verizon authenticates EVDO via firmware extensions that don't exist in Sprint phones, so Verizon's network will refuse to negotiate EVDO connections with a theoretically-unlocked Sprint phone.

T-Mobile's frequency bands aren't supported by default in most GSM phones (most new chipsets can do them, but few phones have support for 1700MHz uplinks enabled, the Samsung Galaxy S i9000 sold internationally is one of the very, very few exceptions).

Most European phones can roam on AT&T, but AFAIK, HSUPA is a semi-proprietary extension to UMTS that's mostly unique to AT&T and not used in Europe(?), so even European phones capable of doing 3G on AT&T will be limping along at less than the max data rate (not 100% sure about this one, but I've seen it widely reported that only AT&T-branded phones can achieve the maximum HSUPA data rates)

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't want costumers? I can see why a provider would try to make it difficult to use a phone they helped pay on some one elses network, but trying to
prevent phones that some one else helped paid for to get on the network just doesn't make sense

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[spire3661]

Your post clearly precludes any iphone 4S information which has all the radios to be a 'world phone'. Verizon requires a 60 day cooling period before you can unlock the micro-sim in the 4S, but im sure you could get it rushed if needed. Other then that there is nothing stopping you from popping a micro-sim in it and start calling right away.

P.S. ON 4G Sprint CANNOT refuse your device in the US, in theory at least.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate when people in costumes show up.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[zazzel]

[..] so even European phones capable of doing 3G on AT&T will be limping along at less than the max data rate (not 100% sure about this one, but I've seen it widely reported that only AT&T-branded phones can achieve the maximum HSUPA data rates)

Could well be - but Europe DOES have HSPA+, if that is what you meant. Vodafone Germany, for example, currently offers 21.6/5.7 MBit packages. Though I do admit I'm getting confused with all the abbreviations and their different uses and meanings.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[YoopDaDum]

Most European phones can roam on AT&T, but AFAIK, HSUPA is a semi-proprietary extension to UMTS that's mostly unique to AT&T and not used in Europe(?), so even European phones capable of doing 3G on AT&T will be limping along at less than the max data rate (not 100% sure about this one, but I've seen it widely reported that only AT&T-branded phones can achieve the maximum HSUPA data rates)

HSUPA is a standard 3GPP feature, added in release 6 and widely deployed in Europe. Whenever you see "HSPA", it does include both HSDPA (Downlink) and HSUPA (uplink). Now maybe AT&T has some special extensions or deviation from the standard there, I couldn't know. The only time I was on AT&T with a European phone, I never got better than EDGE anyway ;)

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[sjames]

Unless, of course the judge also required them to interoperate tho the maximum extent technically possible. That is, the radio firmware must also be unlocked and freely updatable. Sprint will just have to enter your MEID into their database if you want to bring your own, etc.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

My unlocked Nokia E71 was most definitely working with AT&T while I was in the USA 2 years ago and it was working with every feature enabled vs the locked down E71x that AT&T sells you on contract.

I also fully expect my unlocked iPhone4S to work with any microSIM I put in it as long as the frequencies match. The only drawback is that you don't actually get a cheaper rate when bringing your own phone so you are basically paying for other people's phone in contract/credit.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 4S still doesn't have 1700/2100. No iPhone has 1700/2100 right now. The Verizon/AT&T notes had nothing to do with the frequencies the radio supports.

(4G Sprint is wimax, is it not? Also not supported by the 4S)

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Roogna]

Well the obvious thing would be if the laws int he US were changed to forbid carrier SIM-locking, that those same laws should also enforce that a phone that is compatible frequency wise simply can not be denied by a carrier. In fact, it probably should have been a FCC requirement for the past decade that any cell phone sold would simply work on any and all US carrier frequencies.

But it's a moot point, because these rules don't look to be changing anytime soon in the US.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[slinches]

While not a huge selection, there are 3 unlocked quad GSM/pentaband HSPA smart phones on Newegg that fully support just about every GSM carrier including both T-mobile and AT&T. Two Nokias (N9 & E7) and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. There are also many quad band GSM dumb/feature phones that are portable between networks if internet access on your phone isn't a major concern.

Sprint and Verizon's networks are still a problem, but at least there are some options for nationwide/global portability on the GSM carriers.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sprint's 4G is WiMax, which isn't used on another carrier's phones, afaik.

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

HSUPA is standard UMTS stuff. It was probably available in Europe way before AT&T even considered upgrading their towers.

In Finland, two of the three major national carriers have started introducing Dual Cell HSPA (DC-HSPA), enabling downlink speeds of up to 42 Mbps. Beat that.

(Oh, LTE is available too, at up to 100 Mbps)

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[jquirke]

A non-AT&T iPhone will almost certainly never do HSUPA on AT&T, and would almost certainly cost way more than just buying an AT&T iPhone.

Can I ask why? I've taken a UMTS850/2100 handset with E-DCH & HSDPA to the US and used it fine on AT&T prepaid? Are you saying I was only using a Release 99 channel in the uplink, not a HSUPA channel?

Re:Unlock iPhone?

[shutdown -p now]

How can a GSM phone be denied by the carrier, in general? You just pop the SIM card in and off you go. I've been using unlocked phoned from Europe (Galaxy Nexus currently) that way on AT&T in U.S. for over a year now.

Refreshing

[jimmerz28]

Nice to see a positive South American headline.

It must be nice having a small(er) country where you can pass progressive pro-consumer legislation.

Re:Refreshing

[GameboyRMH]

Chile some time ago surpassed New Zealand on my "potential nice place to live" list. Too bad about their Internet censorship, NZ's techie/gearhead culture is really appealing.

Re:Refreshing

[jimmerz28]

I stayed in Australia for a summer with some World of Warcraft friends. Wouldn't ever live there: weather is great and it's a beautiful place (Sydney/Manly/Hornsby), but their telecom/internet infrastructure and draconian censorship laws wouldn't make me ever move there.

Granted that's not NZ, but I'd wager they're somewhat similar from what you said.

I'm still a bit hesitant about South America (for living). I think I'm still set on Germany...I can drink openly outdoors and be real close to just about every type of cute European guy and then legally have a same-sex partnership.

It's crazy how progressive a post-nazi country can be!

Re:Refreshing

[rrohbeck]

There is a lot of smart politics in South America. Look at how Argentina got over its debt crisis - as opposed to the kicking-the-can-down-the-road in Europe.

Re:Refreshing

[rrohbeck]

I'm German and had enough after almost 40 years of German weather (SoCal now.)
Other than that it's nice. If the US economy goes to shit I'll move back but right now it looks more like Europe is going to have some major problems in the next few years.
They're also doing their share of censorship FWIW.

The deciding factor

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that settles it. Once Trump and Palin win in 2016 I'm expatriating to Chile. No poisonous snakes either!

Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[itsme1234]

.. otherwise the law might have been struck as "unfair": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock#Belgium
Yes, you read this right, forcing your provider not to lock your phone is "unfair" in the EU.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh... one single, out of context wikipedia entry about Belgium certainly shows that the EU has terrible phone laws! If you actually knew what you were talking about, you'd realize that the EU has had the exact same kind of law forcing carriers to allow unlocking FOR FREE and allow users to port their phone numbers with minimal hassle for many years now.

I am from the EU (Netherlands) and the carriers are obligated, by law, to allow unlocking of their locked phones (yes - they ARE allowed to sell them bundled and locked, which might be just what that Belgium quote is about). I'm not sure on the details, but I think the rule was that the phone has to be at least a year old.

I moved to Canada and didn't feel like getting ripped off more than I absolutely needed to, so I spent all of two minutes getting the unlock code of my two old phones via the Dutch T-Mobile website so I could use 'em with one of the big telecoms here.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[itsme1234]

Can you please quote this elusive EU law that's "forcing carriers to allow unlocking FOR FREE" ? Please note that "after 1,2,5,50,500 years" doesn't qualify as "FREE" anymore as even popular expensive smartphones tend to be "left behind" after about one year or so nowadays.
Because the countries are so small and close you might want to go to Germany tomorrow (for one day, one week or one month) and use (for example) a cheap local SIM for data with YOUR phone. And you can't (and the fact that your provider might unlock your phone after 245 days doesn't help you a bit).

Not only I find hard to believe that this "EU law" exists but I'm not aware of ANY EU country that has a local law that either forces the providers to sell unlocked phones or forces them to unlock the phones for free without further qualification. Wikipedia seems to be agree with me as well.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[frn123]

Depends on the EU you are talking about.

For example in Estonia, it is forbidden to sell locked phones. All phones work on all networks. And phone numbers are transferable to other networks for free.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[itsme1234]

Would you care to edit the relevant parts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock ?
They list only Israel and Singapore as countries banning simlocked phones; I'm sure somebody will add Chile but probably won't think/won't find the relevant "citation needed" to add Estonia as well.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[frn123]

Hmm, i could not find the concerning law. So there still remains the chance that no operator does sim-locking.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[Carewolf]

Not only I find hard to believe that this "EU law" exists but I'm not aware of ANY EU country that has a local law that either forces the providers to sell unlocked phones or forces them to unlock the phones for free without further qualification. Wikipedia seems to be agree with me as well.

You should take faith in WP alone, but now that you started, where on earth did you look?

Did you try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock ? The laws are bit different between the countries, and the list is outdated from current regulation, but there are several examples in the list of just that what you find very hard believe.You should start believing more.

Anyway you don't need your carrier. Most GSM phones can be unlocked at the phone store for a small fee (10€ or less), which is perfectly legal, since it is your phone, you can do with it what you want. From WP there is wonderful story about UK carriers trying to superglue the SIM-cards to the phone to circumvent easy unlocking, but I am not sure how true that is.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about any law, but I do know that I can walk outside right now, go to some providers store and tell them I want to get a contract with them using my old t-mobile number.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[zazzel]

I wonder what's so hard to understand about the motives for locking phones.
- you get a heavily subsidized phone with a (sometimes) unfavorable contract. Your decision. Contract says: phone stays locked for the contract term. No problem. Caveat emptor.
- you get an *unlocked* phone for €500 (like the Samsung Galaxy Note), and get a separate contract (if you're not completely brazen, you'll try to cash in on that one, too: get the dealer to share his commission with you).

Problem solved.

I've been doing that for many years. Right now, I'm even using a subsidized phone with a different contract: I found a phone+contract without SIM-lock.

That being said, I think it's perfectly legitimate to offer a deal that says: "While you're on this contract and enjoy this 1€ iPhone that comes with it, the thing STAYS locked! Because, you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch!".

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at Denmark and Finland in the wikipedia article. I can confirm that it's true for Denmark. Although it is only maxed at 6 months, it does limit the exploitation and in practice it means you can always get phones completely unlocked.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

since it is your phone, you can do with it what you want.

It's your phone, but the firmware is just licensed, in this case for a locked phone. In Germany, some unlockers have been handed suspended jail sentences for commercial, large scale unlocking, according to this article. The judge called the unlocking illegal tampering with evidence and modification of data.

Re:Luckily Chile isn't in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Belgium DOES forbid SIM locks on phones. All phones here are sold without a SIM lock. The case the EU had against Belgium is about the restriction that carriers couldn't give discounts on a phone when you signed a contract. Since about two years, the carriers are allowed to give bundle discounts, but they still can not lock the phones.

A good law, except

[mehrotra.akash]

must unlock free of charge all devices already sold to costumers through a simple form on their respective websites

When the phones were sold, the carriers would have used the future earnings from these phones to offset the initial discount.
Now they cannot make that money
Somewhat unfair isnt it?

Re:A good law, except

[itsme1234]

Any unexpected (and everything is unexpected at some point) regulation is "somewhat unfair"; the provider might bet on you staying with them after you finished your contract because you don't want to lose your number but then number portability comes and then they can't keep you.
Fact is the provider is intentionally crippling a perfectly good phone betting there will be enough people paying for their "official" unlocking service to offset all the costs associated with these procedures and even get them some extra profit.
It's a non-zero sum game in which the "total" optimal strategy would be for the provider to just stop messing up with the phones. The problem is that market will not reach this point by itself once those 2-3 big providers sell only locked phones.

Re:A good law, except

[TheCarp]

Unfair? No. Unfair is selling someone a device, telling them that they own it, it belongs to them, and if it breaks, they must pay to replace it.... and while it can technically connect to any network, its restricted to only use one. If they own it...its theirs, its unfair to make them own it AND tell them they can't use it as they see fit. Period.

So yes, it makes this particular business model untenable. Thats not unfair, it was the model that was based on an unfair practice.

Re:A good law, except

[oddjob1244]

When the phones were sold, the carriers would have used the future earnings from these phones to offset the initial discount. Now they cannot make that money Somewhat unfair isnt it?

You're still in a contract with the carrier so they get their subsidized money back. This just means when you're done with your contract you can take your phone with you to another carrier.

Re:A good law, except

[Sprouticus]

There is nothing to stop them from putting a cluase in the contract that forces you to pay some ammount for the phone if you cancel the contract early. It just prevents them form denying you the use of the phone you purchased on another provider.

Re:A good law, except

[Duhavid]

They still have a contract, dont they?

Re:A good law, except

[Bert64]

You don't need locked handsets to do this, existing contract law requires that the consumer uphold their end of the contract, which usually involves paying for mobile service for a minimum period of 12 or 24 months at an inflated cost to cover the subsidy on the handset, or to pay an "early termination fee" which basically amounts to paying for the cost of the handset up in one go anyway.

There are many reasons someone may want unlocked phones, for instance:
To use a local simcard when travelling
To buy a phone for someone else, eg i know someone in particular who wanted to get a subsidised iphone on contract, give it to her grandson and continue using her old handset with the service for the duration of the contract (she has no use for any advanced features of a phone and cannot afford to purchase an iphone in one go but can easily afford the monthly cost for 2 years)...
To sell/pawn (locked phones aren't worth as much)

Re:A good law, except

[Anonymous Coward]

When the slaves were sold, the plantation owners would have used the future savings from the free labour to offset the initial price.
Now they cannot save that money.
Somewhat unfair to prohibit slavery, isn't it?

Note that I'm not trying to equate locked phones with slavery, just trying to use an extreme example to illustrate the point. If a practice is wrong, you fix it, regardless what the cost may be to those benefiting from that practice.

Costumers rejoice!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure all the costumers are happy about this change as they will finally be able to manage all of their costumes on a device of their choice. I wonder how this change will affect the customers at large though!

Re:Costumers rejoice!

[dubbreak]

.. manage all of their costumes on a device of their choice. I wonder how this change will affect the customers at large though!

Not super funny, but definitely not a troll and worth pointing out. I would have probably gone with something like, "So only people wearing costumes or people that make costumes get unlocked phones?"

The editors should be able to pickup the difference between costumer and customer. Reading it once should be sufficient.

Chile, technology leader of the region.

[esquizoide]

Since I was a boy, Chile has always been known for being a leader in telecoms in Southamerica. It seems now that we are also leading in matters of technology rights. We also have Net Neutrality http://www.neutralidad.cl/ by law, ISPs can't block content nor censor it. Traffic shaping is also forbiddin (although it is still in use, since the Net Neutrality law is new). Our Minister of Telecommunications have said that the next goal is more competition and better prices both for Internet en cell phone communications. Also, in topic to this article. We have 3 major cell phone providers, and there are 2 more providers in the way. We also have more cellphones than citizens (20 million cells, in contrast to 17 mill citizens).

Re:Chile, technology leader of the region.

[toolo]

I've traveled there on business and agree. Very impressive low-cost for access infrastructure. It is good they are being heavy handed with the cellular carriers though - the prices for international roaming are robbery there and forces people onto VOIP if they are working temporarily in the country.

Re:Chile, technology leader of the region.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Chile would be a great country to live in, except for this...

Re:Chile, technology leader of the region.

[GameboyRMH]

An FTA with the US? Meh, not the end of the world.

Re:Chile, technology leader of the region.

[snookiex]

Leader in Southamerica? Well, at least not on this regard. Check this (in Spanish)

Re:Chile, technology leader of the region.

[tokul]

Traffic shaping is also forbidden

If ISP can sell you 1Mbps, 2Mbps and 10Mbps plans, they are shaping traffic. If laws prevent shaping, your ISP will be able to sell you only plans with download counters. Thank you, I would rather have shaped line instead of traffic counter.

Re:Chile, technology leader of the region.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Traffic shaping is used to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds of packets that meet certain criteria." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_shaping

Same Here

[zzen]

Over where I live (Czech Republic) I'm told it's been this way for several years now. Although even before that, the local Vodafone made a point of differentiating itself from competitors by selling only unlocked phones. Their position was always "our service is so much better that we don't need to lock you in".

I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case in a lot of the EU countries (or if it were an EU-wide directive shortly).

Re:Same here

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds kinda interesting.
By "exit fees", does it include "early termination penalty" as well?
If yes, then there are no points to have cellular contracts, right?

Re:Same here

[RightSaidFred99]

As if any of that matters. They just jack up the prices of the phone and build in the profit loss from such tactics into the normal price of your cellular service. It's a zero sum game.

Oh, and what's your tax rate, like 60%, and higher if you make a moderate amount of money? Sounds...great!

Re:Same here

[PPH]

Sounds reasonable.

Separate the financing of the phone from the service contract. Once the phone is paid off, your total expenditures drop. Assuming that you don't have to upgrade to the newest fanboi status symbol, that is. I wonder how many people keep their phones out beyond the contractual period and just keep paying the same rates. And how much profit carriers make off such suckers.

The end of subsidised handsets.

[Anonymous Coward]

That means carriers will no longer want to give you a handset "free" (for but a small premium on your contract), so you'll have to buy one or bring your own. Personally I have no problem with this, but it does change the dynamic somewhat. Let's see what happens.

Re:The end of subsidised handsets.

[kjc197]

I disagree,

The subsidy is clawed back by the providers by (length of the contract) x (price per month). Surely it would not make a difference to the subscription income during the course of the contract, as the monthly bills are mandatory.

What it will affect is attrition after the contract finishes. With no network lock, changing providor is just a sim card away, also could affect roaming charges, if consumers opt for a local PAYG sim when on their hols/business trips.

Better link available.

[Lashat]

I know that reading TFA flys in the face of /. reason. However, links to Twitter feeds, while verified as "subtel", are not really great story references.

Here is the English translation
"EYE From today cellular phones # # Chile must be sold unlocked. If stock is locked need to unlock your company at no cost"

Sadly, this is the best link I could find with a basic internet search.
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/52450.php

Any other sources out there on this topic?

Re:Better link available.

[nomorecwrd]

If you don't mind reading in Spanish:

http://www.emol.com/noticias/tecnologia/2012/01/02/519679/desde-hoy-companias-desbloquearan-gratis-celulares-por-internet.html

http://www.guioteca.com/tecnologia/desbloquear-el-celular-que-significa-y-como-se-hace/

This might be explained...

[vikingpower]

...by Chile having a successful history of doing away with dictators....

Re:This might be explained...

[Anonymous Coward]

... after having them foisted upon them by [answer left as an exercise for the reader].

Yay for chile!

[gl4ss]

cheap phones, cheaper calls, cheaper data and operators have to compete with quality too.

I really, really wish they hadn't allowed operator locking for 3g phones in Finland. it had shit to nothing impact on 3g adaptation.

Carrier Subsidy

[stu72]

I agree with this 100% but I hope everyone realizes that with no ability to force customers to stick around, there will be a dramatically reduced incentive for carriers to offer subsidies on fancy phones. I think this is fine but I wonder if there will be an uproar when $600 iPhones cost $600 instead of $200 + contract and/or lock.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[ZorinLynx]

This is what ETFs are for. If the customer doesn't stick around, they have to pay $200+ to cover the subsidy that was given to them on their phone. There is no reason to lock phones at all because of this.

No matter what happens, the carrier will get paid back for the subsidy.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[nine932038]

Curiously enough, this didn't stop South Korean telecom companies. When I was living there, I was able to move my phone from company to company without a problem, even with a smartphone plus subsidy. The only limit was that I could only move my phone sixty after signing the initial contract.

I assume that the new company simply bought the phone contract from the old company outright, and simply continued on the same terms with the client.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[fuzznutz]

And when demand drops for those $600 phones as customers have to pay the upfront cost, maybe the prices will drop accordingly. I would personally love to see a system where cell companies could not sell/profit on the handsets themselves. Service and handset costs might hit a "normal" equilibrium where tightwads can buy a cheap phone and get inexpensive service, while gadget freaks can buy their latest iPhone and pay for monthly service, not a mortgage on the phone.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[erroneus]

Phones don't cost $600 and Windows doesn't cost $300. Just because party X "charges" Y for something in 'retail' things doesn't mean it's worth it or that anyone actually pays that much let alone "costs" that much to make.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[geek]

Exactly. An Unlocked iPhone 4S costs more than an iPad 2. There is no reason for the unlocked phone to cost what it does. The price is artificially inflated to make it look like you are getting a huge amount off in subsidy.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[tgd]

This is what ETFs are for. If the customer doesn't stick around, they have to pay $200+ to cover the subsidy that was given to them on their phone. There is no reason to lock phones at all because of this.

No matter what happens, the carrier will get paid back for the subsidy.

Strange, even the IRS can't manage to get 100% of the population to pay the taxes they owe. And you honestly think a cell company can economically justify seeking collections on all the people who stopped paying their bills without paying the ETF and took the phone to another network?

IMO, the problem isn't SIMlocked phones *in contract*, the problem is the hassle of getting the phone *unlocked* out of contract. The law should be simple -- when a particular device goes out of contract, the device is automatically unlocked. People with good credit should be able to request the unlock early, particularly for international usage. (Verizon will do that, for example.)

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[MXPS]

Obviously. That's where the marketing and advertising teams demonstrate their worth. They make people believe that's what the phone is worth and that they are getting an incredible deal by locking in with a two year contract when in fact all they are doing is subsidizing the cost of phone and spreading the cost back to the consumer over the term of the deal.

The price will always be what the consumer is willing to pay and the fact that people are willing to pay $600 for a cell phone, either upfront or over the course of their contract, means the market price will never be much lower.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[Bert64]

The contract already locks you in for the duration of its terms, and the carrier is protected here by contract law.
There is no reason to add the additional lock-in of a locked handset, and no reason that carriers could not offer unlocked handsets with subsidies.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. An Unlocked iPhone 4S costs more than an iPad 2. There is no reason for the unlocked phone to cost what it does.

A 16GB iPhone costs $649, and a 16GB 3G iPad costs $629.

For your $20, you get a 1080p rear camera (vs. a 720p camera in the iPad 2), smaller components (higher density = more $$$) and a high-density ("retina") display (again, more density = more $$$) plus some phone-specific things like a vibrator motor and a face-proximity sensor. I'd say you get your money's worth.

Re:Carrier Subsidy

[gumpish]

For your $20, you get a 1080p rear camera (vs. a 720p camera in the iPad 2)

As opposed to a camera that captures images in an interlaced pattern?

More government interference!

[cvtan]

If you people would just leave cell phone companies alone, they would naturally all do the right thing by their customers!!!

Re:More government interference!

[erroneus]

You forgot the "sarcasm" tag didn't you...

The race to the bottom seems to pay off quicker and better than the race to the top.

Re:More government interference!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they won't. Because there cannot be enough competition!
Cell phone service is not really a free market, because wireless spectrum is limited and needs to be granted by the government.
Besides, the initial cost to enter the business is high. (e.g. deploying towers)

I may buy my next phone from Chile

[erroneus]

I wonder if I can get phones that work with TMobile-USA's network from Chile. Seems like the best way to buy a new phone.

Re:I may buy my next phone from Chile

[HornWumpus]

Been able to do that for years. Unlocked phones are easy.

Finding one that will work on T-mobiles 3G frequencies is a bit of challenge though. If you can live with edge speeds you're golden.

Free as in...?

[erroneus]

Okay, we say "free as in freedom" and "free as in beer." Can we now say "free as in Chile" and "free as in chilli"?

Same here

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Israel, and we have the same law - no network locking.

Our Operators are also not allowed to charge "exit fees" if you terminate the plan early, and if you terminate your data/calls contract but want to keep your phone (and finish paying for it according to the original contract) the operator can't prevent that either.

Oh yeah, and starting from this year, using "fine print" in advertising material is a crime! I love this country :)

In the original spanish this is known as...

[Karl Cocknozzle]

"Con carne" communications laws.

Yum! Make mine with cheddar and onions, please!

Well if you can afford the phone outright...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the point to this article. In the UK you either get the phone from the manufacturer unlocked, or you buy into a contract for say, 18 or 24 months and pay per month, usually getting the phone free or almost free depending on the tariff. This new development will mean Chileans will just have crap phones as most of them won't be able to afford anything decent.

Re:Well if you can afford the phone outright...

[RightSaidFred99]

The thing is that it would be silly to buy a phone for $500 when you can get the same one for $99, considering the fact that your plan cost will be the same and you're certain to need 2 years of service from _someone_ anyway. Sure, you can change providers within 2 years. I guess you have to decide whether that flexibility is worth $400 or more.

Awesome!

[hesaigo999ca]

We should adopt this law, and make it a death sentence law as well for any carrier to do this. That would get the point across!

What about subsidized phones

[Shivetya]

how does the law handle those?

Because if carrier lock down is not permitted for subsidized phones then that market will end very quickly. As such it would not be something I would want to come to the US. One of the reasons for the explosion in smart phone popularity other than marketing is that buyers never had to pay for the phone up front.

How is this handled in Chile? Was there ever a subsidized market? If so, what happens to it?

Never applaud a regulation quickly as side effects are not always known or improperly dismissed.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[glodime]

Dell seemed to figure out how to charge people over time for large tech purchases (and make more money in the process). Why wouldn't Verizon be able to do this?

(Replace Dell and Verizon with any large producer of consumer goods and cell carrier, respectively, to further illustrate my point)

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Because if carrier lock down is not permitted for subsidized phones then that market will end very quickly. As such it would not be something I would want to come to the US. One of the reasons for the explosion in smart phone popularity other than marketing is that buyers never had to pay for the phone up front.
Gee, you handle subsidized phones the way you did before, you charge the appropriate fee if the person terminates their contract. This isn't rocket science. Oh, you meant how do I keep people jumping to the next big thing if I can't keep the phone locked down allowing them to update their phone instead of the new shiny 2 yrs later. Well, the automotive industry survived the death of tail fins, I'm sure the smart phone industry can survive a lack of locked bootloaders etc.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[shadowrat]

sometimes fortunes are lost when markets are simply ended by decree. There was a point in US history where President Lincoln said (and i paraphrase), "i don't care how much you invested in your farming equipment. it's not yours anymore and you don't get to recoup anything."

Obviously locking people into a cellphone contract is not comparable to slavery (despite what some here might claim), but i suspect the economic impact of simply declaring those contracts null is also less significant.

I'm sure there are other examples of laws being passed to end a previously lucrative but legal way of business that incorporate less hyperbole.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[timmy.cl]

From now on carriers are allowed to sell both locked and unlocked phones, but they have to clearly state which is the case, and what are the conditions of the lockdown (e.g. monthly discount, preferential prices). Also, the phone lease contract must be independent from the line contract. And the phone lease contract must provide a way to get the phone unlocked. The typical case will be something like "I give you this phone if you pay $X upfront and $Y monthly for Z months. If you have a voice plan with us, we'll discount you $Y for the first Z months".

I agree that changing previous contracts is somehow abusive against carriers, but IMHO it's the only way to encourage the first big wave of people switching. The market appears to be OK with this so far, and carriers already started aggressive marketing campaigns to steal each others' customers.

(Yes, I live in Chile. Sorry for suboptimal english ;) )

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know how to get the mythical lower rate or non-contract service at the same rate (as svc. w/ a subsidized phone) when bringing your own phone when buying new service.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[GreatBunzinni]

Because if carrier lock down is not permitted for subsidized phones then that market will end very quickly.

Please do explain how not permitting phones to be locked will lead phone companies to stop selling them. After all, not only are phone companies selling unlocked phones as it is but they also require that people actually have phones in order to sell their contracts to provide a service. You know, the whole reason why a phone company exists to begin with.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[slinches]

I think they'd likely handle subsidized phones the same way the carriers do now, early termination fees. The reason they put the lock on the phone has nothing to do with the subsidy. It's to prevent switching to a more competitively priced plan once the contract expires.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[nine932038]

Well, I suppose you'd have to check countries where this has already occurred, such as in South Korea. In South Korea, the smartphones are subsidized, but you can still change carrier. It just so happens that when you do, the new carrier simply buys the phone contract from the old carrier, and makes a new contract with the client for the phone.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[sjames]

You could very probably buy your phone on a major credit card, pay a bit over the minimum each month and come out about as well off as with the cellular contract.

Or, the carriers can offer the phones in unlocked condition in exchange for a contract term just exactly as they do now. They'd just have to make it two agreements rather than one. The carriers would have to be a bit more truthful about what costs what, but as much as they hate doing that, I doubt they'll fold their tents and go home over it.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[CaptCovert]

While we're on the subject of hyperbole, the carriers are somehow like Hitler.

Anti-trust is another set of legal measures that were designed to protect the consumer/market but 'discourage investment'.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Solandri]

Because if carrier lock down is not permitted for subsidized phones then that market will end very quickly. As such it would not be something I would want to come to the US. One of the reasons for the explosion in smart phone popularity other than marketing is that buyers never had to pay for the phone up front.

This is a big peeve of mine. The carriers are ripping you off here too. The ETF (early termination fee) handles the loss they would take on the subsidized phone if you jumped ship before your contract expired. But once your contract expires, there is no more subsidy. They've recouped the subsidy cost through your monthly payments over 2-3 years. So once you are off-contract, they should drop your monthly fee an appropriate amount.

T-Mobile is the only carrier which does this. All the other carriers continue charging you the same monthly fee as if you have a subsidized phone. In effect, they are stealing from you by charging you the subsidized monthly fee even though your phone is no longer subsidized. I am generally against regulation, but anti-regulation is just a means to an end. The end is the free market, and hiding charges like this is not conducive to a free market. So regulation which prohibits these hidden charges which can be abused in this manner is a good thing.

At this point, we need legislation to force carriers to break out phone subsidies into a separate charge. If you don't want to pay full-price for your phone, you can get it at a discount. But rather than characterize it as being subsidized via your monthly fee, it should be structured for what it really is - a loan. The carrier loans you the purchase price of your "$0 down" phone. The monthly loan payments get added onto your monthly service bill. When your loan is paid off, you have only service charges left to pay. If you jump ship before repaying the loan, the full amount of the loan becomes due. No ETFs. The way they currently do it is so obfuscated it's rife with abuse and cheating.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[tgeek]

IMHO, subsidized phones ought to go away. Hiding the true price of the phones behind carrier subsidies frees the phone manufacturers from having to price their phones openly and competitively.

Imagine if there were no subsidized phones. Would we still have iPhones, Samsung Galaxies, HTC whatchamacallits and whatever else? I think so. Would they cost $500 or more? I doubt it - I think market competition would drive the prices down. Plus we might actually have some reasonably priced contract terms for service.

Instead we have manufacturers who set whatever exorbitant price they like and conspire with the carriers to hide that price into locked-in contracts. PT Barnum, wherever he is, must be smiling!

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Belial6]

You would only want it not to come to the US because you are bad at math. T-Mobile already has this. Instead of hiding the cost of the phone in the bill, they tell you the cost of the phone, and give you a 2 year interest free loan on the phone that gets put on your bill. For anyone on a 2 year cycle, nothing changes. For those that keep their phone for longer than 2 years, it is cheaper because at the end of two years, they don't have to keep paying for a new phone that they did not recieve. For those that upgrade more often, they can pay off the remaining balance on the old phone and get a new loan on the new phone.

The only thing happening with this is that people are being honestly told what they are paying for, and they are not being charged for phones they don't receive.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[andydread]

Well first of all in the US the carriers basically have everyone believing that they are purchasing subsidised phones which they are not. The phones are not subsidised they are financed to the purchaser under the auspices of being subsidised. Nothing can be further from the truth. What you are doing is paying the full carrier cost of that phone through the length of the contract. If you exit the contract early you have to still pay the full carrier cost of the phone. If the cost of the phone to AT&T is $575 they you will pay $200 ($199) up front and $375 on that back-end. If you exit the contract prematurely then you will have to pay the remaining $375 for the phone. So all the US carriers have to do is just start telling the truth and itemise the cost of the phone on your bill. They do not want to do that because people who keep their phone after the contract is up are still paying a payment as part of their bill for their phone once the phone is paid-off. The longer you keep your phone after the contract is up the more you pay for that said phone.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[goose-incarnated]

We have the same law, and have unlocked phones, and have number portability, and yet ... surprise, surprise, the most popular plans and phones are those subsidised phones on contract plans. We also have cheaper plans and mobile internet that you can only dream of (on contract, I get 10G for about 25 USD. Off contract it's 3G for about 18 USD)

It really is sad when people buy into the propaganda and actively work against their own interests, such as when they oppose regulations that protect them from big corps. A moments thought on your part would have made you realise that most countries have regulations to prevent the cell providers from locking phones to networks, and they have a healthier cell ecosystem than the US.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[s73v3r]

Yeah, no. I will always applaud this kind of regulation.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[s73v3r]

I agree that changing previous contracts is somehow abusive against carriers

Given the abuse that most carriers like to inflict on their customers, I'm not going to be shedding any tears for them.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[ifiwereasculptor]

Because if carrier lock down is not permitted for subsidized phones then that market will end very quickly. As such it would not be something I would want to come to the US. One of the reasons for the explosion in smart phone popularity other than marketing is that buyers never had to pay for the phone up front.

It already happened in my country about three years ago, so I feel like I can enlighten you. First, realize the phone isn't really being paid by the carriers. You, as the customer, are the one paying for anything "subsidized". Always. The cost of your phone is simply factored in what you pay for data. So what happens is they keep offering the phones+data at roughly the same price they are now, and when you finish paying for the phone, you'll keep paying only for data, which is obviously cheaper, or you'll get a new phone and keep paying about the same. What they currently do is force you to get a new phone on credit every year or so (or keep paying for it but get nothing in return).

Plus, a bonus for customers: with no barrier for changing carriers, the free market reigns supreme and they start competing more fiercely. Right now, as I understand, changing carriers over there is quite expensive because it demands that you pay for a new phone (well, half, being "subsidized" as they are), so sometimes it's economically advantageous for the user to keep using a carrier that has worse signal and bigger prices. Also you have to match phones and carriers according to a pathetically artificial compatibility list. It's nuts. The carrier's customers are getting majorly screwed over there with this sort of lock-in.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Germany you can buy plans that have no montly base fee (and cancelable every month too) and thus dont subsidize a phone. To make up for it you can buy a phone and pay for it in 24 (thats what the traditional plans last) installments with no downpay. Split up the two contracts kinda. So if you decide another company offers a better plan then go for it, only have to pay for the phone at the old company of course.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[ieatcookies]

Because if carrier lock down is not permitted for subsidized phones then that market will end very quickly. As such it would not be something I would want to come to the US. One of the reasons for the explosion in smart phone popularity other than marketing is that buyers never had to pay for the phone up front.

Carriers could provide phone subsidizing even with unlocked phones - they just need to provide attractive service packages to entice customers to use them and not their competitors, something I think would be a good step forward. If a user purchases a subsidized phone they are generally locked into a contract with the carrier for some period of time. It doesn't really matter if the phone works on other carrier networks since the user must pay their monthly bill for the contract length.

I definitely applaud this direction and hope to see this come to North America.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Anonymous Coward]

They can always split the contract into a telephony contract and a credit contract... There: subsidised phone. That "subsidy" is recovered through the subscription fee anyway. The subscription fee will go down to 5 dollars a month, and the rest up to 80 dollars will be "credit repayment instalments".

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You are 100% correct - africans *ARE* 'Farm Equipment'.

WTF?

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got a new phone for me and one for my wife through T-Mobile. The plans we got were for $50 per month per person for unlimited talk, text and 2gig data. ($10 more each would have made the data unlimited). We got new phones with our plans. That added $15 per month per phone, but only until the phones are paid off. That is the first time I have ever felt like I've known what I was paying for with a phone company.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[gmhowell]

"Farming equipment"? Cute...

Re:What about subsidized phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing from Chile. I bought a subsidized phone, and had a number of installments to pay for the subsidy amount. These installments are discounted each month I still have a service contract standing. If I stop the service, I lose the discount and start paying the installments. Monthly. Not all remaining installments at one time. Where there's a will there's a way.

Re:What about subsidized phones

[kryliss]

The subsidizing is just bullshit anyway.. do you really think that smart phone is worth $700.00? More than the cost of a good full blown laptop?

Not the UK

[jotaeleemeese]

Phones remain locked, depending on the model it can be relatively expensive to unlock it (unless you engage a shady unlocker in places of London that are best not visited often )

Re:Not the UK

[mapkinase]

unfortunately, I pressed submit before realizing that "it" could be understood as particular rules, while I meant "common sense".

Re:Not the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true; check the terms and conditions that came with your phone. The unlock fee only applies in the first year (two in some cases) of use, after that you can ask your carrier to unlock your phone free of charge. It's buried in the small print of the booklet that comes with them, so most people don't realise the option is there, but it is.

Sanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't last.

It's a sane decision, it's intelligent, it's how things should be, so... ...it'll be fought tooth and nail until insanity prevails.

User freedom is the bane of corporate profits.

Goodbye cheap phones or hello higher ETFs

[Casimireffect]

Most phones are sold below cost and the difference is recouped because the customer is obligated to stay with that provider for some period of time.

Their are two incentives for the customer to stick with that provider -

1) Locked phones - their phone becomes useless on another provider
2) Early termination fees - the customer has to pay a fee to leave

If you take away one of these, expect either the other to go up or the subsidized phone pricing to go away or at least go up.

Whether you think this law is a good idea or not, just remember that there will be consequences.

You are wrong.

[jotaeleemeese]

Kiwis are more liberal, they are conscious they are an small country and don't tend to comit the same arrogant mistakes of bigger countries.

I concur about Australia, the shine goes after one week there, for example I was actually racially abused 3 times while there for a couple of weeks, the same amount of abuse I have received in the UK in 15 years.... that says it all really.

Re:You are wrong.

[jimmerz28]

Well I mean the USA was mostly debtors fleeing the UK whereas AUS was mostly prisoners. Not saying one is better than the other but ;)

I did notice quite a bit of open racial hostility towards the Aborigines and East Asians (at least from the people I was around which were white UK transplants), which like most of what I saw in Australia was stuck in the 1980s.

Next time I'm hoping to see more than the air terminal in NZ. They def. have the best airlines I've ever flown on, Air New Zealand was a very impressive service.

In most countries....

[jotaeleemeese]

... abusive contracts are deemed unenforceable.

Locking phones to stop costumers to use them as the please is anticompetitive, immoral and abusive.

Be more price conscious

[CAPSLOCK2000]

There is no such thing as a free phone, you will pay for it either way. The difference is that a subsidized phone hides the price. As consumers are not paying directly for the phone, there is far less competition on price.
The network-operators will not pay the list price anyway. They'll get a massive discount and then use the inflated list price to justify their high prices.

Wouldn't help in North America

[Maow]

Well, by North America, I cannot speak to the situation in Mexico.

But in Canada & USA, one can take their unlocked phone to another carrier after a contract is over, but there is a price disincentive against doing so.

If the new carrier offers either 1, 2, or 3 year plans, all with a new phone, or PAYG, then the incentive is to take the "free" new phone, not bring the unlocked one along. PAYG being a rip-off for anything but the most casual usage, of course.

Until carriers in NA are forced to have plans with different prices for "free" phones vs bring-your-own phones, there will not be much incentive to switch carriers and continue using the previous phone.

BTW, Wind Mobile in Canada will give you - for free - your network unlock code after 3 months of service. I've unlocked 2 Android phones that way. Now we can travel internationally and just plug in any cheap SIM, or switch to competition and simply get a SIM.

Re:Wouldn't help in North America

[Anonymous Coward]

And Rogers (Canada) won't just unlocked your phone after the contract is over.
They charge $50.

Re:Wouldn't help in North America

[Insightfill]

Until carriers in NA are forced to have plans with different prices for "free" phones vs bring-your-own phones, there will not be much incentive to switch carriers and continue using the previous phone.

T-Mobile, notably, has a different price plan for "in contract" and "out of contract". If you're already a customer, they won't switch you automatically when you end your 2 year term, but you can join with an unlocked phone at any time at the lower rate.

Re:Wouldn't help in North America

[MattskEE]

T-Mobile has been offering discounted no-contract plans if you bring your own phone for at least two years now, which is when I first got one of these plans. The T-Mobile Value plan for individuals with 500 minutes, unlimited texts, and 2GB of data for $50/mo is essentially equivalent to my current plan which is no longer offered on the website. It is also pretty similar to the Monthly4G prepaid plans from T-Mobile.

Of course the next issue is that of compatibility. There are so many radio bands and communication standards to cover in the USA that when you buy your own phone you have to do a bit of extra research to make sure your phone is compatible with your intended network's high speed data options.

Good first step!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see the following rules (in the US and everywhere):
1) all phones must be sold unlocked (as in this law)

2) long term contracts forbidden... customers should be free to switch every month if they do not like their carrier

3) subsidized phones replaced with short term loans/leases that are clearly separate from the service part of the bill. so, you buy a subsidized phone on AT&T with a 2 year term. If you switch to Verizon in 1 year, then you continue to pay AT&T for another year, as per the terms of the phone loan, but pay verizon for your service. Also, once your phone is paid for (or if you pay up front), your bill will go down. The current system encourages phone replacement every 2 years, since you are paying for a new phone whether you use it or not.

4) some future date (2016?) where all phone carriers must use phones which are interoperable

why the fuck you want subsidized phones?

[gl4ss]

why the fuck you want subsidized phones?

really? if you're poor and short on cash - then buy a fucking 40 bucks phone - they do exist, they work as phones really well. or spend 120 bucks and buy something that can run angry birds. if you can afford an expensive smartphone buy it upfront.

OR do a proper partial payment plan for it. doing long contracts with carriers is stupidity, doing long contracts that you don't even know the terms for is greater stupidity and that's what carrier locked subbed phones are.

Re:why the fuck you want subsidized phones?

[Fjandr]

Credit appears easier, and US culture is all about what's easy.

In any event, it's somewhere between incredibly hard and impossible to get a non-contract plan from a carrier that isn't based on abusive pricing. I just found out last week that T-Mobile no longer has non-contract plans for multi-line accounts. Their non-contract plans used to actually give people a discount for bringing their own phone. Not any longer. They're still the least of the 4 evils though, so I'll stay with them for the moment. If there's no change for the better in the next two years, I may just ditch my cell and return to using a landline. Can still keep a cell around for mobile emergency calls, and not pay the carrier anything.

Re:why the fuck you want subsidized phones?

[OneAhead]

Because the available non-contract plans in large swaths of the US of A are appallingly bad deals, subsidized phone or not. Assuming that you want to avoid paying out of your nose for light cellular usage, you'll be on a contract plan. If so, you can get a decent subsidized phone for free, or a subsidized device that can run angry birds for almost-free. If you decide to buy your own unlocked phone, you'll just end up subsidizing someone else's phone through your overpriced contract plan. That's why.

I personally put at least part of the blame for the mildly overpriced contract plans and the outrageously overpriced non-contract plans on price fixing. If you want to see a firm falsification of the central dogma of laissez-fair capitalism, just go to the country where everyone is indoctrinated with it at school, and study the cellular networks, the internet service providers,... For every American libertarian who claims that the economy is best off with as little as possible legal limitations and government intervention, the country is driven further into the ground. It is widely recognized among non-bigots that competition in a free market cannot be efficient if the lawmaker doesn't aggressively fight oligopolies, trusts and cartels. Of course, it doesn't help to have an election system that practically forces the lawmaker into a multi-million dollar dept to the cartels even before assuming office...

Re:why the fuck you want subsidized phones?

[OneAhead]

Oh, silly me, I forgot the big one: healthcare providers.

You forgot teen pregnancy in your list

[Medievalist]

I live near DC. I hear TV and radio commercials related to some upcoming government policy change or decision all the time and they all follow that exact theme.

Getting off topic but for those outside the DC area.. It is surprising the number of commercials that are played on local radio and TV for the joint strike fighter, Boeing, health care, telecomm, network neutrality, cleaning up the hudson, etc. I guess if you can't lobby the pentagon and government officials directly, catch them in their commute waiting in traffic listening to the radio.

And thus the phrase popular outside DC, when referring to federal government - "those people are living in their own little bubble".

This is one of those occasions...

[macraig]

... where it would be really nice if I could trot out that nationalistic cliche only in America..., but I can't, can I? This brings to mind the belated Federal legislation last year to put the brakes on disproportionately loud commercials, something that was addressed in some Old World countries a long time ago. The United States isn't quite the leader it imagines itself to be.

USA Matrix: What good is an unlocked phone...

[Overzeetop]

What good is an unlocked phone...if you can't use it on any other carrier? None of the semi-modern services (3g or up) are compatible across the carriers, and all of the voice systems are at least partially segregated.

Even LTE will be similarly hampered because "free market" dictates that every carrier use different frequencies for the same service.

Is there a way to unlock an iPhone 4S yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a way to unlock an iPhone 4S yet?

Close, but no giant cancer stick

[Powercntrl]

Sprint's network will literally refuse to talk to a phone that attempts to identify itself as a subscriber phone with a MEID that isn't in Sprint's official database of Sprint-branded phones.

Which is not a technical restriction, but a self-imposed whitelist. Think of it as a gentleman's agreement between Sprint and Verizon not to activate the others' phones. It's very likely that if a law was passed requiring phones to be sold "unlocked" that the government would also take a rather close look at carriers attempting to skirt around the law with ESN/MEID/IMEI whitelists. It's worth mentioning that Verizon allows their MVNOs to activate non-Verizon CDMA phones - Sprint is simply choosing to be a dick.

Verizon authenticates EVDO via firmware extensions that don't exist in Sprint phones, so Verizon's network will refuse to negotiate EVDO connections with a theoretically-unlocked Sprint phone.

Plenty of people use Sprint phones flashed over to Page Plus, a Verizon MVNO. As long as you have a means to obtain the correct M.IP profile 0 data (which consists of some IP configuration, your NAI and HA and AAA passwords), your EVDO will work. Conversely, people successfully use Verizon phones on Sprint's Boost Mobile prepaid service by means of cloning. (Which is actually rather commonplace, if you look on eBay and Craigslist.)

T-Mobile's frequency bands aren't supported by default in most GSM phones (most new chipsets can do them, but few phones have support for 1700MHz uplinks enabled, the Samsung Galaxy S i9000 sold internationally is one of the very, very few exceptions).

Yes, the biggest example of this is the iPhone - which can be purchased unlocked but will only connect at EDGE speeds on T-Mobile. Keep in mind that it might be more common to see multi-band phones if carrier locking wasn't the norm.

Re:Close, but no giant cancer stick

[Miamicanes]

> As long as you have a means to obtain the correct M.IP profile 0 data (which consists of some IP configuration,
> your NAI and HA and AAA passwords), your EVDO will work.

Hmmm. This is the best explanation of the reason why Sprint phones (even hacked ones) generally can't do EVDO on Verizon (unless they're identical twins of a Verizon phone that gets flashed to Verizon firmware, like the old Sprint PPC6700 and Verizon xv6700 WinMO phones ~5 years ago).

Do you know offhand, is the M.IP profile data a "userspace" config now (in the Android/iPhone era)? From what I recall a few years ago from the discussions at XDA (back around 2007, in the WinMo era), the main problem was that the config data is/was part of the radio modem firmware, the radio modem firmware is distributed in encrypted form, the phone's bootloader won't flash it unless the cert & signature validates, and there was some technical reason why it was impossible to rip the radio modem firmware from an unrelated Verizon phone (with the same radio modem chipset) and flash it to even a fully-hacked Sprint phone.

In other words, you could trick the bootloader into making a Sprint phone look like its Verizon identical twin so it would allow you to reflash the radio modem, but you wouldn't have been able to pull it off with two phones that differed even slightly (like the Epic4G and Fascinate), even if most of the "core" hardware were identical (and the radios were absolutely identical). I think it only worked for the 6700 because the Sprint and Verizon phones were literally identical in every meaningful way hardware-wise.

In New Zealand:

[Anonymous Coward]

We have both generally unlocked phones, although there have been a few windows of exception:
http://www.vodafone.co.nz/help/unlocking-your-mobile.jsp

And legally required number portability (carriers are REQUIRED to let you take your number from one group to another).

Of course we also pay through the nose for mobile services, but that is starting slowly to slide with new providers entering the small market.

Unlocked phones are a must for travelers, just pick up a new sim in your destination country (where they are available, which is most
sane countries) and avoid insane roaming costs.

Also required in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

All carriers in the US must also unlock your handset upon request.

Way to go!

[snemiro]

I live in Canada. I bought an unlocked phone and I have a pay-as-you-go plan. The only complain about this system is the "steal" of the leftover money in my account. When I put $10 in it, it last for 30 days. If I had some unused credit in my balance, it "magically" disappears....I thought this was "stealing".....

What

[dermerzel]

Are you sure you got this right. This makes too much common sense, and for the public none the less.

South Africa

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in South Africa all phones are unlocked. Good to see Chile joining the logical ranks.

Self-abasement rules...

[Auldclootie]

I haven't bought a locked phone since the '90s (the SUPREME IS will forgive my capitulation in contributing to the never-to-be-sufficiently-ridiculed purchase of my daughters I-phones... I hope...) The truth is, we are all complicit in our greedy acceptance of the benefits of 'locked' whether it be SIM, DRM, or other... We all need (to put it mildly) to wake the fuck up - and understand the big picture. Until that happens - it sucks to be a consumer! STOP buying locked phones. STOP buying DRM'ed media, STOP believing good = cheap... and watch the world change!

Chile has fallen off the ratification truck

[epine]

Furthermore, if tried elsewhere, all of the above, plus stealth bombs from the heavens. Looks like Chile has fallen off the ratification truck. They'll be made to regret this soon enough.

SIM-only in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have said for a while that I want, as a US resident, a "bring your own phone" plan where I would buy my smartphone outright, then get a SIM-only plan that does not subsidize one cent of the cost of the phone. If I ever want to replace my phone, I'll spend my own cash and buy another phone outright.

A quick check with Verizon's sister Vodafone, and if I lived in the UK, I could get a pretty cheaply priced SIM-only plan.

It appears, at first, that the market has failed to provide this product. I have a feeling, however, that the demand simply does not exist, for the exact same reason Americans are more interested in how much a car costs "per month", not outright.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Chile, and the name of the game here is top-ups. contract free phones beat plans in a 10-to-1 proportion. That's why it is such an important deal to have unlocked phones. Besides, at the moment there are only THREE carriers, which means competition is pretty lame and unnecessary (for carriers that is), so for us this is a pretty big thing, and as people are used to pay the full price for a phone, changes will be seen pretty quickly