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.
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!
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.
Rephrased. Countries are allowing exploitation the rest of the world has already learned from. Aka GREED
Which is why I’ve been buying nothing except OEM unlocked devices since 2016 I Payful price for them, but I don’t have to worry about leaving my carrier Whenever I want and I don’t have to be on extremely expensive cell phone plans either. There is nobody else in my entire life that pays less for cell phone service than I do and I only know one person who pays the exact same and that’s because we are on the same plan on our own accounts. Literally, everybody I know in my life pays about four times what I do for cell phone service.
Yup. I can get away with prepaid 1GB/month for 3€ because I’m almost always near Wi-Fi and don’t really need to use anything bandwidth when I’m not.
I also find it wild how some people will get an expensive contract that comes with a “free” phone, but then don’t switch to an equal but cheaper contract (without a “free” phone) when the contract term expires, or at the very least renew the term so they get a new phone.
Yeah, that one is beyond me as well.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Not like they used to, mostly. They just replaced “contract” with “equipment payment plan”. Because $50/mo for 24 months is easier for a consumer to swallow than a lump payment of $1200, especially when the carrier is giving you a $10 or $20 (or more) “discount” on the phone.
But as long as the EPP is active, the phone is locked to that carrier. And I think that’s fair. No different than the bank holding the title while you finance a car.
The thing is that the plans that have these equipment deals are significantly more expensive than others. Namely big name plans like TMo or Verizon, compared to MVNO plans like Mint or Visible. So you end up paying more for the plan because you get “a deal” on your phone (but still end up ultimately paying more).
OK, now ban bootloader locking next.
I sent the FTC a letter asking them to look into the practices of bootloader locking. They did they they would consider looking into it
How did you go about doing that? I wanted to ask them about being able to replace the primary bootloader, including signing keys for any device that a user has paid for, which is a step above bootloader unlocking.
Kind of like installing coreboot or libreboot on a PC/laptop.
It’s one command to unlock so what’s the point?
…on OEM unlocked devices that you buy upfront and pay full price for. Buy one second hand? Fuck you. Get one through a carrier? Fuck you. Get a gift from a family member who has upgraded? You guessed it, fuck you.
Don’t Sammy do and apple do it… Not even carriers?
Pretty sure Samsung does it to appease carriers since they sell unlocked snapdragon variants elsewhere
Too bad SCOTUS just ruled that US government regulatory agencies are essentially meaningless a day or two ago
Thank fucking God. It never should have been a thing ever.
Don’t worry. With SCOTUS overturning Chevron this won’t stick. /s (in case it’s not obvious)
“Verizon agrees that the FCC should consider the merits and trade-offs of handset unlocking requirements,” Verizon spokesperson Rich Young told The Register, though that support is conditional.
Screw verizon with an acid covered cactus. What possible “merits” are there to locking a device down for anyone but the companies selling the phones? Rich Young can go kick rocks.
I will not buy a phone through a carrier, I will not buy a phone with a locked bootloader. Period.
I am done with anticonsumer bullshit.
With Chevron overturned, you are absolutely not done with it. It will get much worse.
How do you feel about removable batteries?
I can see two sides to this:
Removable batteries are great, if you want longevity for a phone, and don’t mind sacrificing water resistance.
On the other side of the coin:
Removable batteries have more potential to lower water resistance ratings.
I think more manufacturers should give the choice of a model with a removable battery.
With removable batteries is that there is actually a legitimate reason for getting rid of them, in that it’s much harder to waterproof a device with a removable battery.
I’d still like to see the option available, but I can at least understand why it’s not from a practical standpoint. The only reason carrier locks exist is to increase the cost of change for the end user, making them less likely to switch providers.
Didnt even know carrier locking is still a thing. I think thats long illegal here in the EU
People can usually unlock the carrier on their own. Many phones (or at least every phone I’ve ever gotten from T-Mobile) even come pre-installed with a carrier unlocking app. It’s just not automatic, and certain conditions need to be met.
People may also sometimes be able to buy phones already unlocked directly from the manufacturer if they want to. (Whether or not they’re able to do this depends on the manufacturer.)
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.
If there is money to be lost in it, dont bet on it getting lit
Oh I’m getting lit either way
We’ll see how this fares in the face of Chevron being rescinded. Will they even recognize FCC authority to do this?
Pretty sure all new rules like this must be made my congress now…
Hoo boy we are fucked.
