Chile Forbids Carriers From Selling Network-Locked Phones

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Chile Forbids Carriers From Selling Network-Locked Phones

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 3, 2012 @04:34AM from the as-regulations-go-not-a-bad-idea dept.

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."

16 of 291 comments (clear)

An outbreak of common sense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-03 04:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

I applaud it.
1. Re:An outbreak of common sense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-03 05:01 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  RTFA: Chile != China
  ROTFLMAO
2. Re:An outbreak of common sense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-03 05:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
3. Re:An outbreak of common sense by GameboyRMH · 2012-01-03 05:20 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  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
4. Re:An outbreak of common sense by sjames · 2012-01-03 05:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
5. Re:An outbreak of common sense by Grishnakh · 2012-01-03 06:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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".
6. Re:An outbreak of common sense by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-03 06:51 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  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.
Wow by Bert64 · 2012-01-03 04:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

--
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-03 04:50 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  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.
2. Re:Wow by frisket · 2012-01-03 05:11 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  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.
Chile, technology leader of the region. by esquizoide · 2012-01-03 04:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

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:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-03 04:47 · Score: 5, Informative

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:Unlock iPhone? by Miamicanes · 2012-01-03 04:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

> 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:Great by daem0n1x · 2012-01-03 05:15 · Score: 5, Informative

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:What about subsidized phones by timmy.cl · 2012-01-03 06:36 · Score: 5, Informative

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 by tgeek · 2012-01-03 07:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

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!