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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."
.. 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.
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.
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.
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)
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 !
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
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.
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.
Chile has a lot of forward-thinking legislation on tech issues. Net neutrality is already legally enforced there.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
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]
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
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 ;) )
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.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."