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Android Q Will Include More Ways For Carriers To SIM Lock Your Phone (9to5google.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the it's-not-all-rainbows-and-butterflies dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Over the weekend, four commits were posted to various parts of Android's Gerrit source code management, all entitled "Carrier restriction enhancements for Android Q." In them, we see that network carriers will have more fine-grained control over which networks devices will and will not work on. More specifically, it will be possible to designate a list of "allowed" and "excluded" carriers, essentially a whitelist and a blacklist of what will and won't work on a particular phone. This can be done with a fine-grained detail to even allow blocking virtual carrier networks that run on the same towers as your main carrier.

Restriction changes are also on the way for dual-SIM devices. At the moment, carriers can set individual restrictions for each SIM slot, but with Android Q, carriers will be able to lock out the second slot unless there's an approved SIM card in the first slot. This SIM lock restriction is applied immediately and will persist through restarting the phone, and even doing a factory reset. Thankfully, in both cases, emergency phone calls will still work as expected, regardless of any restrictions on the particular SIM cards in your phone.

22 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Property is dead by sg_oneill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Somewhere in the heart of Android, theres a Linux kernel, still under the GPL, bleeding out for the loss of all it was supposed represent.

    "Property" is now "Rent".

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    1. Re:Property is dead by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In this case you decided to rent your phone from the carrier. You pay monthly for it, if you exit early there are fees and they want the phone back or the remainder of the balance on it, right?

      Just buy the phone unlocked, or get a contract from someone who doesn't lock it to one network. I get the impression that such options are not widely available in the US, but around here it's common, usually cheaper and I've never bought a SIM locked phone ever.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Property is dead by ctilsie242 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'd be careful on that. I have had some carriers lock unlocked phones, or re-lock phones that were unlocked. How does this rev of Android know the difference between a phone that was locked from the factory versus a carrier trying to seize control of a factory unlocked device and lock it to their network?

      I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of carriers would love to lock out that second SIM as a matter of principle.

    3. Re:Property is dead by mjwx · · Score: 5, Informative

      In this case you decided to rent your phone from the carrier. You pay monthly for it, if you exit early there are fees and they want the phone back or the remainder of the balance on it, right?

      Just buy the phone unlocked, or get a contract from someone who doesn't lock it to one network. I get the impression that such options are not widely available in the US, but around here it's common, usually cheaper and I've never bought a SIM locked phone ever.

      This. In almost every country I've been to you can buy phones outright and stick a SIM from any carrier in them. It gets a bit fuzzy when new networks are established and sometimes the frequencies used are not supported by all handsets, but generally if you're buying locally your phone will work (those of use who buy cheaply from importers need to do their homework).

      Only in the US are you restricted by the carriers. Only a few carriers will permit a non-carrier phone to even be registered on their network and even then you need to register the IMEI on their network before they'll let you do anything. Not like here in the UK where I can walk into Tesco and get a SIM card that will register itself. In fact the UK 3 brand PAYG (Pay As You Go) SIM is highly prized by American travellers because it includes data roaming to 73 countries. Last time I went to the US I used a 3 SIM and got 1GB of data for £10 that just worked when I turned my phone on in LAX, no mucking about at an AT&T store.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    4. Re:Property is dead by mattb47 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      US carriers often (usually?) won't let phones from pay-as-you-go or virtual carriers register unless the phones are a year (maybe two) old.

      So a newer phone from Total Wireless (a virtual carrier using Verizon's network) can't be registered on Verizon.

      The major carriers don't want the cheap, somewhat subsidized phones from these pay-as-you-go services cannibalizing their more expensive authorized phones. (Especially if those phones are from the big carriers' own pay-as-you-go services.)

      However, the carriers generally allow unlocked, unaffiliated phones. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T all allow this. Just buy an unlocked and non-carrier locked phone. It's not that hard. As I posted above (anonymously -- signed in for this post), unlocked and carrier-agnostic phones are readily available on Amazon on other online merchants.

    5. Re:Property is dead by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which doesn't help if the vast majority of stores in which you can see and touch a phone before buying it sell only locked phones.

      So do what everyone else does. Go into the store that sells locked phones, try them out, then buy an unlocked phone on the internet. Make sure you tell the salesdroid that you're not going to buy a phone in his shop because they don't sell unlocked phones, on your way out.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:Property is dead by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Informative

      Then go, see and touch a phone, then asked for an unlocked one. If they can't provide one, you at least have no problem with your conscience for buying it cheaper online.

      It might teach them that those who sell what the customer demands stay in business. Ya know, like, how it was supposed in capitalism?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Property is dead by dargaud · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, with a SIM from 'Free' (a French carrier), I get 25Gb of data a month in the US for... 14€ a month. And it roams with all US carriers, so it's so much better and cheaper than any SIM I could get in the US !!!

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    8. Re:Property is dead by jimbo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have the same experience. I guess the Americans don't have as much freedom as other countries, except for large corporations.

    9. Re:Property is dead by nightfire-unique · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wat?

      The salesman needs and deserves to know why he/she lost the sale. Walking out without saying anything is literally the rudest thing you can do.

      Certainly don't be a dick about it, but always let people know why they've lost your business.

      --
      A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  2. Good Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In a boardroom somewhere in Businessland, a flock of executards converse:

    Smartphone sales have been down for four straight quarters. What can we do to make people want to buy them even less?

  3. Not going to happen by houghi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where I live, simlocking is not allowed. Every phone you buy will be unlocked. Every. Single. One.

    There is a difference between your phone and your carrier fees and your phone. So if you buy a plan with a phone, you can drop the plan and use the phone at any other carrier.

    You could even put the SIM in your old Nokia phone and not use your new phone, or not use your new plan and use the phone on a pre-paid card, or ...

    This all doe snot mean you do not still have to pay your plan and pay a lot of extra fees if you decide to step out early. But that is for the plan, not for the phone.

    The country is Belgium. Home of the free sims and beer.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:Not going to happen by Cederic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, this is only an issue for people living in countries that vote against government regulation of big businesses.

      It's almost as though they fail to understand that the government is formalised representation of people and their wishes and a necessary control against well resourced organisations that could otherwise abuse and exploit ordinary people.

    2. Re:Not going to happen by bickerdyke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Where I live, simlocking is not allowed. Every phone you buy will be unlocked.

      Germany here.

      Every phone you buy, yes.

      But phones given to you as part of your plan aren't exactly bought. And getting a plan that pays for a phone with higher-than-usual minute prices may be stupid and a bet on your phone behaviour (by both sides of the deal...) but legal. And a legitimate reason for sim-locking.

      So here, IIRC, it is legal to include a phone with sim-locking into your plan, but it has to be unlocked when the plan ends.

      --
      bickerdyke
    3. Re:Not going to happen by InfiniteBlaze · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People only vote that way because corporations are given a platform. Stupid fucking Citizens United bullshit.

    4. Re:Not going to happen by cybersquid · · Score: 3, Informative
      When you say "members of a corporation" do you mean the employees? There was never any limit on an employee's rights to assemble nor speak.

      What the Citizen's United ruling did was grant the corporation itself "human" rights.

  4. Sigh by ledow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Buy phone outright.

    Refuse to use a carrier that attempts to lock you to their network (anti-competitive practice - they should only be doing it to ensure that you are still paying your debt to them for your financed phone, but even that's dubious).

    Anyway, I thought we were all going to have eSIMs soon?

    To be honest, at this point, my phone is a tablet on a data connection. I couldn't care less about the telecoms company behind it, and don't use it for classical telephony.

    I would actually rather carry around a Wifi-4G (*) box on a month-to-month or PAYG basis and change it if they started messing me about. Then they wouldn't even see my "phone", just a data connection over Wifi / 4G.

    But for sure, I've never owned a network-locked phone and don't ever intend to start with one. Buy phone from phone manufacturer via retail website. Buy SIM from a shop on a network of my choice. The second I can't just change that SIM for another, I'll find another way to connect. If that means a mini-Wifi box for each carrier, I'll take that into account as regards paying them money.

    (*) I have a little Huawei box. It's the size and shape of a half-used bar of soap. It charges by USB. It works for 8 hours at full whack but can also be constantly plugged in. It offers out a 4G SIM connection over Wifi including NAT, firewall, SIP-NAT, etc. I can slip it in my pocket alongside my phone and, because it has a big data allowance, use all the data on it via my phone without having to even take it out of my pocket.

    It travels with me. It's relatively secure (unlike, say, an open Wifi in a pub). It works throughout Europe. I can connect it to a cheap antenna and boost the signal when at home (when it's powered all the time) and the Wifi covers my entire two-storey home.

    Friends can press a button and join it via WPS if they like. It can even piggy-back off another Wifi so you don't have to change your network settings once you'd used up all your data.

    That's my "connection". Yes, it has a SIM card. Yes, it could be "locked" to the network (it's not - I bought it entirely separately to the multiple SIMs inside it that I switch to if I burn through the data). But it's cheap enough to be throwaway even if they did lock it. One of those and then change the whole thing for another network if they start locking me in and I want to move.

    And then they never get on my phone, my phone doesn't even need a SIM inside it, I can use any phone I like, and I've got that barrier between what they are capable of running code on (even via a SIM smartcard) and what they are not.

    I'd honestly rather do that - both my phone and that box slip lovely into a single pocket with room to spare and can "charge" off each other's cables - than carry a locked phone.

    Hell, I'd carry a USB dongle and you could probably power a USB-4G dongle direct off a phone nowadays (USB-C and all that) and cut out the Wifi and charging portion. New network, new dongle, off you go.

  5. Re: Happy Friday From The Golden Girls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Smithers who is that man?

  6. Re:wait by johnsie · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you think Android is about "Freedom" then you haven't visited https://myactivity.google.com/ If anything Google is using those to devices to collect a tonne of data about people.

  7. Better solution? by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I love how they were able to auction off thin air.

    You have a better solution to the tragedy of the commons?

  8. 911 calls by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Thankfully, in both cases, emergency phone calls will still work as expected, regardless of any restrictions on the particular SIM cards in your phone. In the US, cell phone companies are required by the FCC to connect any 911 call on a phone that connects to its tower. You do not have to have any service, or even a SIM card, as long as your phone can connect. That's why some companies advertise those "911 emergency phones" knowing they must work; and hoping people don't realize any old cell phone will do the same. Got a few years old phone you no longer use? Keep it charged and you have a 911 only phone.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  9. Not a solution by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, UWB. Too bad if you start using UWB, you have to stop using all other kinds of radio, though.

    So A) it's not a solution because it's potentially incompatible and B) it's not a solution because wireless spectrum remains a finite public good no matter how you utilize the spectrum. UWB might make the limited spectrum go further but it doesn't solve the core problem of interference due to unregulated overuse.