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Obama Asks FCC To Make Carriers Unlock All Mobile Devices
New submitter globaljustin writes "According to a Washington Post report: 'Several months after calling for legislation to unlock cellphones, the White House filed a petition (PDF) with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday asking that all wireless carriers be required to unlock all mobile devices so that users can easily switch between carriers. ... the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said that allowing unlocked devices would increase competition and consumer choice, while also putting the burden of changing networks on companies rather than consumers.' This move should be met with universal acclaim from cell phone users, right?"
Although my phone is unlocked, if it weren't, and it got unlocked, my choice of a wireless carrier will increase by exactly one carrier. As Benny Hill would've said: biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig ...deal.
I'm just curious if anyone in the administration actually knows that US wireless companies use different, incompatible technologies. A phone that works on one carrier would, at most, have a chance of working on only one other carrier, and would, most likely, lack the ability to take advantage of the additional carrier's full spectrum, resulting in degraded service.
Now we can CHANGE carriers.
Maybe...
Presumably you're still locked into some contract that went along with getting that shiny new phone.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
We have four major carriers. Two carriers are on CDMA and two are on GSM. The two GSM carriers use different frequency bands for 3G, which means you need a phone with a pentaband 3G radio to be able to freely switch between those two. LTE is even more complicated.
Basically, this would have been a great suggestion ten years ago, but now the carriers have used technical measures to make the whole "carrier locking" thing moot.
Yes it's called a "Loan" and it's what happens when you buy a $600 toy with $50 and someone tells you they need $20 a month until they have $600 from you.
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You say that as if the US didn't feel free to violate treaties and international law whenever it wants.
There fixed that for you
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
It still baffles me how anyone, right, left, or indifferent, could ever trust what comes out of a politician's mouth or their mouth pieces. So the nonsense of FauxNews or the Communist News Network, are all in cahoots to sell you soda and a side of fear.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
OR... you could buy the phone WITHOUT the subsidy and choose your carrier right away.
I think the more important issue is preventing a carrier from forcing a data plan on you even if your phone *is* branded to their network.
Yes it's called a "Loan" and it's what happens when you buy a $600 toy with $50 and someone tells you they need $20 a month until they have $600 from you.
At least for some carriers, the price under contract and the off-contract price are the same. So none of the money you're paying them per month is for the phone. It's then not a loan, and the "cost" of the phone is the opportunity cost of being under that contract as opposed to being able to purchase different service. Depending on where you live, this opportunity cost could be zero. Imagine, say, Verizon is the only carrier that actually works in your neighborhood.
No, the monthly bill is significantly more than the $20. The $20 part is so you can pay $900 for the $600 phone over the two years.
In fact, without subsidies the smartphone market would be tiny compared to the size it is now as the vast majority of the general public would not be willing to pay for a phone if they saw the full cost of the device upfront and had to pay it in one big chunk.
They're really essential for the health of the smartphone industry as much as I'm not a fan of them.
You americans crack me up, you really do :) I expect that the actual evidence of healthier cellphone markets existing in places with unlocked phones is not enough to convince you? The fact that places where the consumer isn't locked into a network actually benefit the consumer have better service and lower costs?
Okay, how about this - you really think that all service providers foot the upfront costs of the phone? Hell, no! They do what every business does when the business wants to sell on credit - they find a bank that grants a personal loan to the consumer who wants to buy on credit. The business then receives their money upfront from the bank while the bank then receives the monthly dues from the consumer, who thinks that he's paying the business.
Of course the consumer doesn't see any of this - the business hands the consumer forms to fill in; those forms are the application for a personal loan for the amount that is being purchased. The filled in forms then go to the bank, which approves the loan and releases the money to the business, who then releases the item to the consumer. Payments made each month go to the bank, even if via the business.
A variation is when the business offers these loans themselves ("BUY ON STORE CREDIT"), and then turn around and sell these loans (for cash) to a bank. You've seen something similar in the housing market which eventually resulted in bank bailouts.
Trust me, even with the lack of subsidies, the consumers are still going to get the phones they wanted anyway, albeit at a smaller monthly payment than the "subsidy" would cost. Instead of buying a $500 phone over 24 months and paying a total of $1500, they'll be buying a $500 phone over 24 months and paying less than $700.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
I always wonder about those people like you who say, "Obama is ok because Bush did the same." Do you not realize that people voted for Obama to be better than Bush? We didn't just want another Bush. We had hope.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And he did bring change, he brought an astonishing amount of change seeing as the GOP asshats in congress have spent the last nearly 5 years shooting down even their own proposals to destroy his Presidency.
Apparently getting 90% of what they want isn't sufficient they have to get that remaining 10% as well.
But, despite of that DADT is gone, DOMA is gone, we have Obamacare, the President actually waited for the UN in Libya. Not to mention we did get some banking reforms, even if they weren't anywhere near enough and the economy has been slowly on the mend. Slowed mainly by the refusal of the GOP to do anything to help the progress out.