Bill Proposes Canadian Cellphone Unlocking Rights 359
SJrX sends in a CBC report that the Canadian New Democratic Party has tabled a bill requiring all cellphone companies to provide unlocked cellphones. (Wikipedia notes, "The party is regarded as falling on the left in the Canadian political spectrum.") This reader adds, "The fact that there is a minority government currently should help this bill's chances of getting passed." "The bill proposes three rules: cellphone carriers would be required to notify customers at the point of purchase whether a phone is locked to work only on their network; they would have to remove such a lock free of charge at any point after the conclusion of the customer's service contract; and they would have to remove it if the customer does not enter into a contract within six months of buying the device up front."
Re:Oh Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Don't hold your breath (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmm.... (Score:3, Informative)
This news comes on the heels of some of the larger Mobile carriers recently launching their GSM (most 3.5G) networks.
Before very recently there was only one company in the entire country that utilized GSM and that was Rogers [rogers.ca]. Every other company was CDMA. There were a few other company names that used GSM, but they simply bought/rented bandwidth off of Rogers towers. The largest of which was Fido [www.fido.ca], however they were eventually bought up by Rogers.
This sounds like a good thing to me and I hope it goes through. It probably wont because Telco's here have a lot of power just like they do in the USA.
My provider is set to launch their GSM network in a few weeks and I'm pretty excited.
3rd party unlocking legal in Sweden. (Score:3, Informative)
Over here in Sweden, 3rd party unlocking of phones is legal. (or at least has been, haven't seen much advertising for that lately, come to think of it.)
You could pay the equivalent of $50 or something to some bozo with a computer and a cable to crack the operator lock.
Obviously, if you signed a contract with monthly fees for a number of months, you'd still have to pay those, but there were some marketing stunt where you could get a locked phone without monthly fees virtually for free. You could then unlock it and sell with a nice profit.
That kind of deals obviously don't come often. Maybe there was just the one.
Re:Don't hold your breath (Score:3, Informative)
Awesome except for one small thing. (Score:1, Informative)
There is only one small/minor/insignificant problem; our 3 primary carriers (Bell, Telus, and Rogers) have incompatable networks!
This has improved slightly thanks to the recent Vancouver Olympics, but still the lions share of the phones are incompatable.
Rogers: GSM -850MHz & 1900MHz
Telus: CDMA and limited HSPA -800MHz & 1900MHz
Bell: CDMA and limited HSPA -850MHz & 1900MHz
Unless you have an awesome phone that supports 800MHz and 850MHz you are SOL for voice communication and have to buy a new phone if you wanted to hop from one carrier to another.
Another fly in the ointment, even if your phone is capable (i.e. Nokia N900)Bell & Nokia do not operate on 'SIM' cards like the GSM based world+dog do, so you are SOL again.
They should have been mandated to all jump straight to LTE and drop this incompatable bullshit.
Re:Oh Canada (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, fun fact: Winnipeg sells more Slurpees from 7/11 per capita than any other place in the world.
Re:Oh Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, this is a lot like universal healthcare: it's a government unreasonably telling private people what transactions they CANNOT engage in (private insurance in Canada is illegal).
Um, no? [bluecross.ca] (One of many.)
Re:Don't hold your breath (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, this is a lot like universal healthcare: it's a government unreasonably telling private people what transactions they CANNOT engage in (private insurance in Canada is illegal).
Um, no? [bluecross.ca] (One of many.)
Actually, yes. I was -- obvious to people familiar with Canada's system and the debate, including legal disputes, around it -- recognize I was referring to normal insurance. You linked to supplemental insurance, which, yes, is legal.
Re:Oh Canada (Score:5, Informative)
I find that difficult to believe especially since I barely use any government services.
I call BS on that one. Chances are extremely good that you've done at least some of these in the last year:
- Purchased food inspected by the government to ensure that it's unlikely to give you food poisoning, and that the nutritional information listed on the side of the container is accurate. Or purchased food from a restaurant which had been inspected to ensure that there weren't cockroaches all over the place (among other things).
- Purchased gasoline from a pump that had been inspected to ensure that 1 gallon of price = 1 gallon of fuel.
- Put money into a bank knowing that the bank was required by law to give it back to you if you asked for it, and would still be yours even if the bank went under (assuming it was less than $100,000).
- Engaged in a transaction on an SEC-regulated market.
- Taken advantage of a 401(k) or IRA.
- Relied on the military and police for protection against any really serious attack (not just one criminal going after your property, but an organized assault with bombs and missiles). You may have also called your emergency services for help with a criminal, a fire, an injury, or other hazards.
- Made use of a government water system (not necessarily at home).
- Taken a walk or ride or swim in a public park of some kind.
- Ridden on or flown an aircraft that had been regulated to ensure that it was extremely unlikely to crash.
- Breathed air that wasn't super-polluted because government regulations prevented companies from just spewing out nasty particulate matter.
I can keep going if you like. The point is, most of the really useful stuff your government does at various levels is not readily visible but affects you every day.
Re:Awesome except for one small thing. (Score:5, Informative)
Telus and Bell built a JOINT network. It's the same 3G network operating on 850Mhz & 1900Mhz.
Their CDMA Network is on the way out and will not be upgraded.
Rogers also has a 3G network operating on 850Mhz & 1900Mhz.
So, you have the nations three biggest carriers operating on the same frequencies of 850Mhz & 1900Mhz HSPA(+).
The only thing not compatible is the first and second gen networks.
The only carriers that this doesn't affect are Mobilicy and Wind.
a. because they don't have contracts and in case of Wind, will unlock your phone (after 3 months) (not sure about mobilicity)
b. they are on the AWS band and are only compatible with each other. (1700Mhz/2100Mhz)
Re:Awesome except for one small thing. (Score:4, Informative)
Telus runs two networks. Their new HSPA+ (21mbps) network runs on both 850 and 1900 spectrum.
Rogers has both GSM AND HSPA/UMTS on 850 and 1900. Generally their 3G HSPA stuff is on 850 while the 2.5G EDGE is on 1900 but this is changing in many rual centers.
You can take an iPhone for example, and work perfectly fine on Telus, Bell, or Rogers (provided it is unlocked which they are from the Apple Store up here).
The particular phone you gave an example for was a bad one as well. The N900 has 2.5G EDGE/GSM on all Canadian frequencies. But it's 3G is only on the AWS band, which is T-Mobile in the USA or WIND Mobile here in Canada. You're also wrong about the SIM, Bell and Telus (and Nokia..what?) have their GSM network which has SIM cards like any other.
Telus/Bell still run their CDMA network but it is generatlly depreciated and not many phones are sold for it any longer.
SO basically there is no incompatible bullshit other than the info in your post. LTE will be welcome of course.
Re:Unless C-32 goes through (Score:3, Informative)
The copyright cartels today will never let anything they have copyrights to fall into the public domain. The majority of things is copyrighted by a corporation and not an individual, so the life+50 years is meaningless.
Good intention, but useless ... (Score:3, Informative)
This bill is good intentioned, but practically useless, given the state of affairs of the cell phone market reality in North America (yes, USians, you too!)
In Europe, Africa and most of Asia, everyone standardized on GSM. You ask the network for a phone number, and they give you a SIM card, you go to any shop and buy any phone and it is guaranteed to work with any network you choose. Not only that, but phones work everywhere from Hong Kong to Dubai to Spain to Johannesburg. Nothing special, other than getting a SIM card if roaming is too expensive.
In the USA and Canada, we the consumers, have accepted things that are never acceptable elsewhere. For example, we had CDMA, which is used only in the USA, Canada, Japan and perhaps another one or two smaller countries. CDMA does not have a SIM card. The phone is made by the manufacturer and locked to a certain network that sells you the phone.
Even when GSM came to North America, it was done in bands that were not the standard ones used elsewhere in the world, which was circumvented when quad band phones were put on the market. Meaning they work in Europe and Canada/USA, but they have a higher price and have more silicon inside to handle this fragmentation.
When 3G came by, more fragmentation occurred. The governments started selling "spectrum", and companies like Google and Cricket grabbed certain bands (WINDMobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile in Canada did the same). AWS was invented.
This means that a phone from Rogers will not work with WINDMobile and vice versa.
So what use will the bill be if they are operating at different frequencies?
Not only that, we see industry lobbyists asking for "more spectrum". The excuse is that spectrum is too crowded, but the real reason is more fragmentation and balkanization so they can lock in customers more and more. Why does Europe which is more densely populated, or Egypt have more carriers, yet all handsets work on all networks?
See this article I wrote earlier: Mobile phone carriers lobby for more balkanization by asking for more spectrum [baheyeldin.com] as well.