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.
Didnt even know carrier locking is still a thing. I think thats long illegal here in the EU
As soon as T-Mobile’s check clears, the conservative SCOTUS will make sure all phones remain locked for eternity. Praise Jesus!
With recent changes to bribery laws by the supreme court, they must change the law before getting paid.
Finally, some meaningful reform!
Just stop buying phones from carriers and you never have to worry about this. If you like a phone, buy it unlocked straight from the manufacturer and do whatever you want with it. Most offer payment plans, and if not you can always use klarna or a credit card with no interest to make payments on it.
Carriers will offer better deals on the phones though if you’re planning to stick with them.
I’m looking at a $1000 phone that ATT will give me for 2.99/month for 2 years. That’s over 85% off on the phone. The trick is they give it to you by actually charging like $42/month, but then giving a $39 credit every bill for 2 years, so you have to pay the difference on the $1,000 phone if you jump carriers.
But since they’re the only carrier that works at my office, and this is gonna be a work phone (my company pays me a monthly stipend for it), I can live with that.
You just end up paying a premium for your mobile plan at that point. There are much cheaper plans than the ATT one, and for some, you’ll end up paying way less if they buy the phone outright and subscribing to those.
There are cheaper plans that subsidize under the AT&T network even.
I used to do this, but Verizon gave me a Flip 5 for $500 less than Samsung was offering and I got a free tablet with it. I needed to switch off of Google Fi anyway because they didn’t have service at my job site.
I had no idea this was even still a thing I don’t understand how it’s legal
It is illegal for all carriers using gsm-based communication. So that’s everyone at the moment and that means that you can’t have phones locked when they’re purchased. They can lock the phones they’re under contracts if you finance the phone. Then they don’t have to remove that until the phone is completely paid off. What’s been going on over the last 4 or 5 years is the company will give you a subsidy for the phone even if you pay it off in full and then claim that that subsidy is part of a financing deal. So they’ll put a fake price and be like the phone cost $1,200 but we’ll sell it to you for $800. Then when you pay off the 800 right when you walk out the door you’re still getting a subsidy that directly pays for that extra $400 they gave you off that wasn’t part of the actual price. If you ever go to change service they automatically use the rest of that monthly subsidy immediately to pay off the phone keep that on the phone since the cost is the same as the subsidy for each month you have the phone untill it’s paid off.
If you have Verizon they have been blocking phones even if they’re not allowed to do that claiming that any phone not purchased through them or the model number that they sell in the store is not compatible with their Network and needs to be evaluated for security. Then they make it a pain in the ass to get your phone approved to be on their Network and it can take up to 90 days even if it’s the same phone just the “unlocked” version with a different model number. This was less of an issue when the FCC rules for GSM based carriers were being enforced, but under Trump and Bush they were not enforcing the rules. And until LTE we had two carriers that were not using GSM based technology so they were not covered by the rules.
It’s not; literally no carrier forces you into a shitty contract anymore.
It is very much still a thing and the contracts still exist in some form, specifically phone financing and locking. If you finance a cellphone from Tmobile, it will be locked to Tmobile until you’ve paid for the phone in full, which is usually over two years of payments. This is why carriers offer deals on phones purchased through them, and have those upgrade-every-year type plans. The contract has just switched from the phone service, to the phone itself. This is also why if you walk into any carrier’s store, they’ll try and convince you to trade in your perfectly good paid-for device for the next years model with a decent trade in value, but only if you finance the new phone.
Boost mobile doesn’t even do financing, but they require you be with them for a year before they’ll unlock your phone. I refuse to go back to them after buying an LG Stylo, and then when I wanted to switch 6 months later they refused to release the phone. I ended up having to buy a whole new phone when I didn’t have the money to do so.
Too bad SCOTUS just ruled that US government regulatory agencies are essentially meaningless a day or two ago
Simlocks have completely vanished from the market at least here in Germany, mostly because carriers don’t care if you use your subsidised bonus phone with a different card – you’re still locked into a contract with two years or such minimum duration. Even those contracts have gotten rare though I think most people right-out own their phones and then make a separate contract.
It only went away because they were forced to. We would still live with that carrier mess if it wasn’t for regulation.
About damn time.
Thank fucking God. It never should have been a thing ever.
As much as I to be optimistic, I doubt this will pass. So long as Wall Street is still a thing don’t expect any sort of regulations. Continue to buy second-hand, OEM unlocked phones on eBay.
If there is money to be lost in it, dont bet on it getting lit
Don’t worry. With SCOTUS overturning Chevron this won’t stick. /s (in case it’s not obvious)
How about no lock in from the get go?
If I recall correctly, Canada got rid of carrier lock-in several years ago
7 years ago. It’s been a very welcome change here.
I don’t really have a problem with this – I think that it’s rarely in a consumer’s interest to choose a locked phone. Buying a locked phone basically means that you’re getting a loan to pay for hardware that you pay back with a higher service price. But I’d point out that:
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You can get unlocked phones and service now. I do. There are some privacy benefits to doing so – my cell provider doesn’t know who I am (though they could maybe infer it from usage patterns of their network and statistical analysis). It’s not a lack of unlocked service that’s at issue. To do this, Congress is basically arguing that the American consumer is just making a bad decision to purchase a plan-combined-with-a-locked-phone and forcing them not to do so.
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Consumers will pay more for cell phones up front. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it maybe makes the carrier market more competitive to not have a large portion of consumers locked to one provider. But there are also some benefits to having the carrier selecting cell phones that they offer in that the provider is probably in a better position to evaluate what phone manufacturers have on offer in terms of things like failure rates than do consumers.
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This explains why I got a text from my carrier saying all phones now come unlocked. Guess they’re preparing ahead of time. Mine was already unlocked, but still.
