If I don’t own my phone, then I’m not paying for it. Period.
Exactly. No further discussion whatsoever.
Why does that even matter? Currently, if you have a locked phone and switch carriers, you have to buy an entirely new phone anyways.
At least this way, a user can pay once, and then hop around carriers depending on what’s cheap.
Also there’s no shot that locking users to phones costs that much because the unlocked version of a phone is only like 15-20% more expensive. Since when did you ever get a 70% discount on the MSRP of a phone for buying it locked??? They’re straight ass lying lmao
That’s the problem. You have to buy a brand new phone because your phone is locked. With this law if you bought your phone outright you could switch carriers within 2 months if you found a better deal and still keep your phone. Can’t currently do that in the US.
And the whole locking cost is made up. It’s simple to make a phone “unlocked”. The cost in inflated on purpose to create a need so they can offer locked at a discount.
… My comment wasn’t disagreeing with you? Sorry it was probably worded goofy lmao
“T-Mobile claims that with a 60-day unlocking rule, “consumers risk losing access to the benefits of free or heavily subsidized handsets because the proposal would force providers to reduce the line-up of their most compelling handset offers.”
I’m I stupid or are they threatening to arbitrarily raise prices for no reason other than spite?
Also wtf is a “handset”?
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“Handset” is obfuscating legalese to refer to a cell phone in a way intending to distance the meaning of the word from the thing that the old and technologically illiterate people who rule on this use every day.
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I’m no fan of their strategy, but cell phone providers have claimed for a long time that filling your phone with unremovable bloatware causes the overall price to decrease. Their argument is most likely that they will have to charge more once the propagators of that bloatware realize that they can no longer force it on people and wedge that as a reason to pay less to carriers.
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The reality is that cell phones are priced based on what people will buy anyway and carriers pocket as much of the money as they can that third parties pay them for their bloatware. Ultimately because of that this ruling hurts their bottom line, but the above reasoning gives plausible deniability in the face of the law as it is interpreted by old technologically illiterate lawmakers
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Missing in this thread, courts are not known for their technological literacy. So companies just lie to them. Like, all the time. This isn’t meant to withstand consumer scrutiny.
Are you suggesting that there are some lies involved in this? If so, you shouid be specific about which lies you’re referring to. Without the specifics this just seems like FUD.
The idea that locking phones is good for customers is a great example.
isnt lying to court felony?
Yeah but you have to get caught lying. And the courts aren’t very literate with tech and economic stuff. You’d basically need to create a memo that says, “lol we lied!”
someone should try to inform relevant courts about technical things, no idea how but those corporations shouldnt be allowed to get away with crime
You’d be interested in groups like the EFF and Amicus briefs.
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For poor people, maybe
This.
But if we unlock your phones from the start we lose control over you :( pwease
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength
Poverty is wealth
France is bacon
Damnit! I was trying to find bliss!
Locked phones should just be straight up illegal. It creates so much e-waste and is utterly ridiculous
Ohh look a corpo has opinions about your property 🤡
Remember that nextime you pay for a subscription
“You mean our property.”
-Corpo
They would. Pricks.
Near monopolies say monopolistic behavior is good for you and does not only benefit them. More bullshit at 11.
You know what the difference between a near monopoly and an actual monopoly is?
In one scenario there’s competition and in the other one there’s not. Basically one’s a monopoly and the other isn’t.
If near monopolies agree to rules sets with one another, they can effectively monopolize. That’s why there are regulations in place to prevent that behavior but we’re consistently seeing the lack of enforcement of those rules. Sure there are still other telecoms other than these two, but in the US each of the major telecoms are guilty of this sort of behavior, and while phone unlock is allowed they create unnecessary barriers to make it more difficult for consumers to do this, at the benefit of themselves. It’s similar malicious compliance to providing an ability to cancel a subscription but making it difficult to do so for consumers so they give up trying.
“Taking away peoples freedom is whats best for users! It’s the American way!”
The FCC is the one taking away people’s freedom here, by preventing users from entering the kind of contract that T-Mobile and AT&T are offering.
Consenting adults are happy to sign up on those terms, and the FCC is proposing to prevent that arrangement.
The carriers make an excellent point that without that lock-in, the sale of the phone is less valuable to them. This means they won’t be able to offer the heavy subsidies on phones any longer.
This is the government preventing contracts between consenting adults. The government is reducing freedom here.
What year is it? Locked devices have been illegal in Quebec for, like, ever.
So the story is ‘if they have to be unlocked, we can’t offer discounts on the phones’.
Okay fine but uh, the last time I used a post-paid subsidized phone, I signed a contract. That stipulated how much I’d pay for however many months, and what the early cancellation fee was, as well as what the required buy-out for the phone was if I left early.
In what way is that insufficient to ensure that a customer spends the money to justify the subsidy?
That’s exactly right. Users will have to purchase phones on credit like we do for every other major (and sometimes minor) purchase. This doesn’t change the relationship between carriers and their customers at all. It only changes their accounting.
Accounting is a relationship. When the government prevents a specific type of relationship — one consenting adults are regularly choosing to enter — the result is a change in relationships.
It’s just a lie. I don’t think it’s meant to hold up to scrutiny, it’s just meant to be repeated.
What are you saying is a lie? What claim exactly?
Nono that wasn’t a service contract, it was a payment plan on the phone. And you can’t cancel the service until you pay off the phone.
It’s different…. Really….
Yes you signed a contract. That contract has a certain value to it, and that value offsets the cost to them of the phone.
On your side, the fact that this contract came with a subsidized phone made it worth it to you.
What the carriers are saying is that this set of interrelated contracts won’t be available, and so these terms won’t be worthwhile to the parties involved, leading to a change in future contracts. Namely, the service contracts will have to be more expensive to them, which will make them less valuable to you, which will make them less likely to happen.
This is not me defending any telecom, but locking subsidized phones during the contract period, is one of the only reasonably legitimate use cases for carrier locking.
And the reason is simple, fraud. Carrier locked phones that have been reported for fraud/nonpayment, can’t be used off network. It doesn’t help recover the cost for the carrier, but it does deter that type of fraud.
Whereas unlocked phones can just be taken to another network, which means they’re resale value is worth the effort to steal in the first place.
Now, all that is true, but that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of it, or that telecoms have ever made unlocking fully paid phones easy, they haven’t, so fuck them.
And before anyone points it out, yes, I’m aware locked phones still have have value for fraud, but that fraud typically has a higher threshold for entry, as it involves having the contacts who can leverage overseas black markets.
Not even unlocked phones can be used on another (us) carrier if reported stolen, all IMEIs associated with the device are blacklisted across all legal carriers in the country.
No, they are not. Blacklists are per carrier, at least when dealing with American primary carriers, and not MVNOs.
No, it’s nationwide, all carriers and mvnos are signed on to the US Block Status since IMEI became standard. It’s a separate list from the global GSMA and not all carriers in the US report to the GSMA like they should,but if a device is reported lost or stolen in the US it cannot be activated by a US carrier until resolved.
Except I have used unlocked IMEI blacklisted devices on different carriers, so if one exists in theory, it doesn’t appear to be there in practice.
Depending on what state you’re in, you admitted to fraud or possession of stolen goods, so maybe don’t admit that. That aside yeah some carriers can fail to submit to the US Block Status but generally those instances are rare given the activating carrier can be legally liable.
I’m not admitting to any crime. There are other ways to come into possession of blacklisted IMEI devices, and other ways for them to become blacklisted that don’t involve either of those scenarios.
Why don’t you go pull up all those FCC fines leveied on carriers for activating blacklisted phones.
Bonus points: In Germany all phones come unlocked, regardless if you get them with a contract or not, and we still get much better discounts on the phones than in America.
Often times the total cost of the 24 month contract ends up being cheaper than buying the phone without a contract, so you essentially end up with a free phone plan
So, what does it take to emigrate to Germany? Asking for a friend…
Money and lawyers
If you are from the US it will be pretty easy to get German citizenship, but you absolutely have to learn German to live here, since most older people here don’t speak English
They aggressively buy spin off services to ensure a locked market as well.
Cricket wireless was a on AT&T network provider that outshined AT&T because it allowed any device + better prices.
So naturally they bought them out and shutdown the any allowed devices to force you into buying a carrier phone to ensure your device will be locked.
That’s such bullshit. Locked phones are like google accounts. At the end of the 2 years of owning it supposedly, you end up with all this shit you accumulated and no way to save it anywhere practically.
