Slashdot Mirror
Compromise Struck On Cellphone Unlocking Bill
NotSanguine (1917456) writes The U.S. Senate has passed a bill (S.517) today, allowing users to unlock their phones when moving to another provider. From a recent article at thehill.com: "Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider," [Sen. Patrick] Leahy said in a statement. "Our laws should not prohibit consumers from carrying their cell phones to a new network, and we should promote and protect competition in the wireless marketplace," he said. [Sen. Chuck] Grassley called the bipartisan compromise "an important step forward in ensuring that there is competition in the industry and in safeguarding options for consumers as they look at new cell phone contracts." "Empowering people with the freedom to use the carrier of their choice after complying with their original terms of service is the right thing to do," he said. The House in February passed a companion bill sponsored on cellphone unlocking from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)." Also at Ars Technica, as pointed out by reader jessepdx.
Very few phones work on both CDMA2000 networks (Verizon and Sprint) and GSM networks (AT&T and T-Mobile), and they're hard to find in U.S. stores. Mail order doesn't let you hold the phone and get a feel for its size, weight, screen, and buttons before you buy.
What decade are you living in? Most recent phones have been either phones that work on both AT&T and T-mobile or LTE phones with multiple bands which would work on multiple networks. It is only the retarded Verizon specific phone that are designed to work on their bastardized version of the 700 Mhz band that have less utility on other LTE networks.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Yes, but is that the chicken, or the egg? If phones were portable between networks, then multi-network compatible phones are actually worth selling and will show up in stores (in theory).
True story:
My sisters's iphone screen broke. I asked her what she was doing with it, she said "Nothing, Apple wanted $100 to fix the screen but I just signed on for another contract with Verizon and got a free iphone."
This is how a lot of people think, and they're too naïve (or dumb) to realize the truth (no comment on sis). Her iphone is worth several hundred dollars, and if the phone is fixed for $100 she still comes out ahead. Verizon, meanwhile, will charge her more per month and actually, she's losing money on the deal.
This should allow you to move a phone between Verizon and one of their MVNOs. While Verizon and AT&T use different technologies, T-Mobile and AT&T use GSM and LTE. As VoLTE becomes more popular and increases, I think most cell phone providers will start to standardize on that, which will mean they're all using the same technology (if not the same bands) and moving a phone between Verizon and AT&T may be possible in a few years.
Phones like the iPhone have the ability to use most american, european, asian, and FAIK african cell phone bands, for years now. Most high end android phones have similar abilities (and some allow multiple sims).
My iphone has never been unable to communicate on a region's network, and I travel a lot, My (unlocked) iphone has worked on all four continents mentioned. Quite a few places in America, most countries in europe west of Czech (and who'd want to go east of there), South East Asia, and Morocco (OK, not all of Africa).
Of course, maybe el cheapo brand cell phones might differ, but if you are paying $20 for a cell, who cares if you can unlock it and use it again?
Unbundling phones and contracts would be a win. People would see the actual cost of their devices. Unfortunately, the carriers would keep the monthly rates the same, or even raise them.
Up here in Canada, we finally got rid of 3-year contract terms. The carriers raised prices almost the next day. Luckily my contract was only 2 years anyway, and it was worded such that plan/rate will stay the same for the forseeable future, provided I don't get a phone through the carrier (not that I planned to).
It simply boils down to greed at this point. These companies are raking in billions and prices seem to keep going up, with no increase in service or quality. :-/
The carriers now will say that they have to raise prices or even completely do away with contract subsidies in order to be competitive.
Then they'd have to compete with their MVNOs and T-Mobile USA, all of which have been itemizing the hardware and the service for years. Prepaid MVNOs have always sold the phone up front, and even before T-Mobile branded itself "the un-carrier", it had the SIM-only "Even More Plus" plan that offered a discount for bringing a compatible phone or buying one up front.
This is a tech site, we're supposed to be people who keep up with the latest in technology. I'm not sure, exactly, why I have to keep posting this over and over, but here we go again:
The "retarded" Verizon specific phones are actually some of the most compatible phones you can buy today. Not only do they work on the Verizon CDMA and "bastardized" LTE networks, but they include full functionality for GSM and HSPA networks. I have two Verizon phones, right at this moment, that I'm using full time on other networks with full capability. My Verizon iPhone 5S is currently being used on an AT&T postpaid plan. All LTE, HSPA, and GSM functions work with 100% compatibility. My Verizon LG G2 is being used on T-Mobile with full LTE, HSPA, and GSM services. Nearly every phone worth having today is fully compatible with the GSM/WCDMA (HSPA) network technology. Phones are becoming more compatible, not less.
Now, everyone always wants to trot out the fact that you can't take a phone from Carrier X and move it to Verizon, and this is true. Very few use cases actually involve moving a phone TO Verizon, however. But to say that Verizon phones are the bastard child of the cellular industry is simply untrue. In fact, they are more useful to some people, including myself, as I can take the aforementioned G2 or iPhone and put my Verizon SIM back in it and go on my way. Phone manufacturers have no incentive to make multiple product lines, yet they all still need to support Verizon as the largest carrier in the United States. So they make compatible phones, then simply disable the ability to connect to CDMA on the ones sold to GSM/HSPA providers. But the Verizon ones are compatible with GSM/HSPA and CDMA, making them the most versatile of all.
At any rate, things being more open rather than less is always a good thing. There are plenty of cases where a phone geek such as myself can benefit from having unlocked handsets lying around. Say someone breaks a phone, or an iPhone fanboy wants to try out Android (or the other way around), or traveling overseas, or trying out a new MVNO or prepaid carrier...just pop in the SIM and you're on your way. And as for the GP, millions of phones work on CDMA and GSM (and their descendents), they're just all sold by Verizon. But the FUD machine wants you to think there's no good reason to have handsets with carrier mobility, and for many folks, that's simply untrue.
If you're not financing the phone via Verizon, you have no need to pay Verizon anything. Instead you just use one of their subsidiary brands or affiliate for about $35 / month.
I don't remember the current names for Verizon, but as an example Sprint and Boost are the same company, same LTE network Boost is $35 / month. You'd only pay the Sprint contract price if you were paying off your "free" phone.
My Nexus 5 thinks you don't know what you're talking about; it works just fine on T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint. Get with the times, man; it's ALL ball bearings now!
> It simply boils down to greed at this point
Greed and a whole lot of stupid. Sprint has two brands for the same company, Sprint brand and Boost.
Boost is $35. Sprint is $85 or whatever with a "free" $150 phone. People have the choice, and they choose to pay an extra $50 / month for 36 months = $1,800 for that phone. Not just uneducated people either. I bet someone will get all defensive and reply to this post with justifications of why it's not stupid of them to pay $1,800 for a $150 phone, and that person is a Slashdot user - probably a computer programmer or something.
When so many people choose to pay ten times as much as the phone is worth, it's no surprise someone will sell it to them.
That's why almost everywhere in the US there is a monopoly on Cable TV and Telephone, which also mafically translates into a monopoly or biopoloy for Internet access and municipal fiber is supressed. Seems like those could be the actions of a money whoring jackss who wants the US to have crappy Intrnet, not someone who embaraces comptition.
Just saying.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
I don't understand how this is technically possible. don't you need a different type of phone to go from Verizon to ATT? like taking your TV to Japan.
It depends on the device. Some devices will work across all of the Big 4 carriers in the USA. The iPhone 5s/5c is one example. It contains all the radio equipment necessary to connect to any carrier's LTE signal frequency (3G fallback might be an issue between CDMA and GSM). I would expect these radios to become more prevalent as time progresses.
This space for sale. Inquire within.
This is kind of a double post, but it's important enough to warrant a separate post.
Unfortunately, Congress has dilly dallied on this issue for too long. We're now past the point where mandating carriers unlock phones will help. There are still phones which will work across a broad range of carriers, but they are now few and far between. Most of the newer phones are limited in their frequencies so they'll only work fully with one carrier. Take it to another carrier and you'll either suffer degraded service, or even lack certain service like LTE. So even if you can unlock your phone from the carrier, it won't do you any good because you'll lose 4g or even 3g capability if you try to use it with another carrier.
The only thing that will help now is a law mandating that carriers must provide service to any phone a customer brings with them that's capable of operating on their network. That will open up the markets so that manufacturers begin selling multi-carrier and world phones directly to customers (bypassing the carriers). You can still buy a phone from Verizon if you really want, and it'll be crippled so as not to work with any other carrier even if unlocked. But the smarter person would buy the version of the phone sold by the manufacturer at Best Buy or Amazon which supports enough frequencies that it'll work with any carrier. That's actually what Google did with the Nexus 5 - it supports enough frequencies to work on AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and a bunch of other international carriers. It's technically capable of working on Verizon (with LTE in areas where Verizon provides band 4 - New York and Los Angeles from what I hear), but Verizon blacklists it so you can't use it on their network. What we need is a law making it illegal for Verizon to do that.
As sdomebody living in Belgium where locking is (for now) forbidden, this confuses the hell out of me. The phone is identical to all providers. Sure, some services might not be available, but you can buy any phone and use it on any nwetwork.
If I want a new phone I just go to the store, buy one and transfer the data. You can letthe store do it for you. You can buy a phone where you are locked in, which means you will have to pay the provider for a certain amount of time. They are shortening (or already jhave?) to one year. You are still free to use any phone you desire.
Oh. They are also working on removing roaming costs completely in Europe and have a universal power supply.
It is as if they are listening to the people, not the companies. Silly socialists.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I think most cell phone providers will start to standardize on that
Perhaps not, depending on how badly they want to stop people unlocking and switching providers.