Long-term carrier lock-in could soon be a thing of the past in America after the FCC proposed requiring telcos to unlock cellphones from their networks 60 days after activation.
FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel put out that proposal on Thursday, saying it would encourage competition between carriers. If subscribers could simply walk off to another telco with their handsets after two months of use, networks would have to do a lot more competing, the FCC reasons.
“When you buy a phone, you should have the freedom to decide when to change service to the carrier you want and not have the device you own stuck by practices that prevent you from making that choice,” Rosenworcel said.
Carrier-locked devices contain software mechanisms that prevent them from being used on other providers’ networks. The practice has long been criticized for being anti-consumer.
is that some american problem i’m too euro to understand? we got rid of this anticompetitive shit in early 10s
Yeah, the less civilized parts of world still do carrier locking to act as an impediment to switching carriers without also giving up your phone or paying a ransom fee.
As an American, can I have some of that freedom?
I’ve had that freedom for the entire duration of the existence of smartphones, in the USA. I buy my phones with no contract, at discounted prices, then I flash them with custom ROMs to improve everything, and I use no contract cell phone service. Since about 2007, that is.
Cool.
You can, just buy the phone unlocked online and then get download an eSIM from a carrier. Bear in mind when buying the phone unlocked you’ll need to pay the full phone price up front and won’t be able to finance it through your phone plan like most Americans
In the US, almost no one buys their phones outright. They “lease to own”. Anyone whe does buy their phone outright can just buy the unlocked ones.
So I’m not sure what this rule would actually change. You’re already not Carrier locked if you bought your phone. You’re only Carrier locked if you lease it.
The big fuck up was eliminating competition by allowing t mobile to buy sprint. Too many pieces of shit were in charge 2016 to 2020.
I know lots of Americans who buy their phones without those stupid contracts. It’s not uncommon at all. I have never have a phone on a contract.
In your circle maybe, I’d love the statistics on this though because I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority are paying for their phones on installment through their carriers.
I’m the only person I know who buys their phones unlocked. I think a lot of people rely on the store where they buy the phone to set it up and get all their stuff transfered over. Just getting a new phone in the mail is a recipe for disaster for like a solid 60% of the US population.
I’m getting my phone on a loan at 0%. If I want to switch carriers, then I’ll pay off the rest of the cost of my phone and they unlock it for me, but considering we’ve been running rather insane inflation over the last few years, I’m glad I made AT&T pick up that tab. I see no point in buying outright as I’m not changing carriers multiple times in a year.
You should really check out an MVNO if you can afford to pay off your phone. You’ll save a LOT. I personally use Helium Mobile (uses Tmo and consumer decentralized network) but there are MVNOs that use AT&T if you prefer their coverage.
The major carriers overcharge for service since they lock people in with 0% financing.
I’ve had a couple. The issue is that you don’t save any money on their service if you have your own. So it’s basically “you can pay us $70 a month and buy your phone yourself, or you can pay us $70 a month and have this phone under contract for two years that we’ll give you.”
Never heard of an MVNO huh? I bought my phones outright and have enjoyed having 4 lines for $105/mo.
I have cell tower priority, unlimited data, and 40GB hotspot per month.
Strangely, if I see internet deprioritized on 5G (which is rare), I switch my settings to 4G and it’s blazing fast. So I’ve never had a problem.
So then you buy the unlocked version, just like the person said. This applies more to people leasing it who are locked in, like they said. Do you not have any reading comprehension?
The merger is still something that I’m 50/50 on because it made T-Mobile’s service so much more reliable, and iirc Sprint was genuinely struggling.
It still sucks that Boost isn’t going anywhere
They were on the verge of bankruptcy, really the 2 options were
Let T-Mobile (a distant third competitor to the big 2) buy them
Let sprint die, the big 2 buy large chucks of sprint anyways for pennies on the dollar post-bankruptcy and make their distance from T-Mobile even bigger.
If you need another reason, AT&T was very against the deal, so you KNOW what they think is bad is probably actually good for consumers
I remember during COVID, trying to reduce my bills. Called my mobile operator. For £200 fee I could buy out early, and pay £15 per month. Or I could continue paying something ridiculous like £60 per month.
Absolute no-brainer, and I would never get a contract phone again.
Not always true, I bought a smart talk phone for my kid and the phone was paid in full at the time of purchase. It’s still carrier locked 5 years later because they say “it wasn’t in service for x amount of time and therefore isn’t eligible”. I even reported this to the FCC, opened a case, and they did fuckall and closed the report.
I wonder what the percentage is these days. Almost everyone I know bought their phone outright.
I don’t really see why people are against it, personally I never buy locked devices but they are usually a chunk cheaper and there is always an option for a locked device.
If telecoms were making certain phones exclusively locked (as in not selling unlocked phones) it would be a problem. But rn it seems that it is an easy way to save money if you like a carrier.
okay but you end up paying more - if it was just normal data plan and cost of phone it would be even, but there’s also something paid to middleman that provides something that is effectively credit and extortion services like simlock and some legal thingies, it might have smaller downpayment but it’s not this, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
this is on top of various security and privacy implications of using a phone which you can’t legally reflash
In Denmark you get two options, you can buy an unlocked phone with cash. Or purchase a subscription with it, and the provider gives you some incentive for it. The subscription is locked for 6 months which is the max by law.
If I buy a phone with the subscription, the discount means you would usually pay 80% of the phones value.
That locks you to a subscription for 6 months that is usually more expensive than the other offers out there, but the difference doesn’t make up for the reduced price of the phone over the 6 month period.
So you are actually saving money, as long as you remember to switch to a cheaper subscription after the 6 months pass. The telecom of course hopes you don’t, and that’s their incentive for taking a hit on profit in the short term. It buys them marketshare.
Boots theory doesn’t really apply because it is the exact same phone/hardware. Plus most people don’t really care about reflashing their phone.
As for the privacy stuff I don’t really know much about it in the context of locked phones so I’ll take your word for it.
I think it’s more of a corollary that phone companies can incentivize people to buy more than they need. I live in Canada, where carrier locks have been outlawed for a decade, so we don’t typically get $100s off the phone, but they do often give interest free financing. This pushes people to get a brand new, top-of-the-line Galaxy or iPhone, when all they do is simple stuff that any basic smartphone could do. They just get used to paying “only an extra $50/mo” so once that phone is paid off, they finance a brand new, top-of-the-line smartphone.
Europe (Germany specifically) has their own problems with carriers though.
When you notify them that you’re cancelling your service, you still have to pay for 3 MORE full months of service after that. Even if you’re in the military and ordered to move. That’s a long time.
This 3 month period mandatory cancellation notice doesn’t change even if you’ve been with them for 2+ years.
For US carriers, once you’ve been with them more than the initial 2 years, you are pretty much able to cancel whenever.
We’ll that’s not correct anymore. After at most 2 years (depending on the contract) you can cancel every month. It’s the law since I think last year.