German Court Rules iPhone Locking Legal 146
l-ascorbic writes "A German court has overturned Vodafone's temporary injunction against T-Mobile. Two weeks ago, the British mobile network won an injunction forcing T-Mobile to sell iPhones that were not locked to its network. Vodafone argued that locking is an anti-competitive practice, and sought to force the German network to permanently allow the use of the phones on other networks. After the injunction was granted, T-Mobile offered the unlocked phones for €999 ($1473), and these will now be withdrawn from sale."
Already widely published (Score:1)
Allow me to say it. DAMN NAZIS !! (Score:1, Funny)
Ich bin ein unlocker (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Ich bin ein unlocker (Score:4, Interesting)
Because they are actually funded directly by the people. And not by corporates.
Take for instance BBC: It is a public funded news organisation and is the exact opposite of FOX. So BBC has no incentive to like corporate-sponsored candidates and they can actually be true reporters.
Take France: They always hate monopolies, hate corporatocracy, hate anything US-mass made. So for them to rule against Apple is understandable.
Germany: Tricky case. The judiciary is fiercely anti-monopolistic but yet corporate friendly. The parliment is neutral and they are bound by EU laws. And secondly German-made products are faaar superior in quality than chinese-products.
Poland: Fiercely anti-monopolistic and strongly pro-consumer. Alarms corporates a lot.
Finland/Norway/Sweden: All these 3 have totally different but radically same policy: As long as its made in EU they support it. If not in EU, they have a NIH syndrome.
Italy: Let them first get their postal service to work.
Belgium: They can't decide if they want to remain an independent country.
To conclude: EU is mostly pro-consumer and is not awed by corporate money power primarily because EU member presidents and parliments are funded by taxes and public funds, and not by corporates directly.
So they can afford to be altruistic !
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There. Fixed.
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What the hell is that supposed to mean?
;)
Oh wait... I was going to reply to this how much American products we actually have around, but I ended up deriding the said products in every sentence. Then I started thinking about cell phones and how much the Japanese Nokia knock offs suck
Damn. Poin
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But, in the US, the govt is funded by both the corporates and the people....it is just that the govt listens to the corporates tell then what to do with the people's money. Strange set up, I'll grant you...
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It's a licence every owner of a TV or radio has to pay, i.e. The People.
Sure the BBC has it's own biases, show me a truly neutral person.
But at least the BBC can't be bought by corporate greed.
But then your mentioning of Fox on the same line as the BBC makes me fear I've overheard a Whoosh!
Re:Ich bin ein unlocker (Score:5, Insightful)
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Being critical of the government is not a virtue if you do it blindly without any consideration of accuracy. That's the problem with Scandinavian media. The attitude seems to be that their ultimate job is to bash the government. Good reporting is about reporting things the way they are. The BBC does quite a good job ( in relative terms ) , while NRK fails spectacularly and tends to end up on a "the powers that be
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Some BBC reporters are very good, but typically the best stuff is either on domestic radio (say John Humphrys [bbc.co.uk] on Radio 4) or BBC World. Listening to Humphrys doing an interview is really like hearing a maestro at work, dissecting politicians of all sides for breakfast but sympathetically talking with a disaster victim. Domestic BBC TV seemed not so good on my last visit there (even Jeremy Paxton who handles the late-night news), and actually there seemed to be better coverage of issues in drama than on the
Okay I'll bite... (Score:5, Insightful)
The more expensive handsets, such as my Nokia E61 or my housemate's Nokia N95, were unlocked. Why? Vodafone's contracts are written differently than any US carriers. When I sign up for a cell phone I agree to pay a lump-sum amount of cash in 12, 18, or 24 monthly payments depending on the length of the contract. Incentives increase with the length of the contract. If I cancel the contract at any time, then I must pay the remainder of the sum and forfeit the monthly payment schedule. In this way, Vodafone is already promised a certain amount of cash in exchange for the handset. They don't care if you leave at that point since they've already made the money.
I really find it disturbing that Slashdot heralds Europe as some panacea in the cell world. It's really not as bright and wonderful as you people try to make it out to be. Ultimately these corporate entities are out to make money within a certain set of rules. Cell phone locking, unfortunately, is a fact of life in the UK. When it isn't, its because of the way the contract is written.
Re:Okay I'll bite... (Score:4, Interesting)
My understanding is that a lot of American phones are "feature locked" as well, i.e. certain features are disabled in order to force (coerce) you into using the higher-priced Telco features. I've heard really crazy sounding things like Bluetooth being disabled so you can't copy songs to the phone for free, you have to download them from your Telco. Is this hogwash, or does it have some basis in reality?
Also, the phone companies do care if you pay out the contract and leave; a lot of their market value is determined by the number of subscribers they have. While it's true they won't care about an individual subscriber leaving, they do care in the statistical sense.
I'm in Australia and the UK contracts sound similar to what we have. My latest phone (N73) is with 3, and interestingly enough they appear to subsidise the cost of the phone. I'm paying $22 a month for the handset over 2 years, which works out to be a little bit cheaper (around $100 IIRC) than buying it outright would have been. I guess there might be some trick with depreciation, but I was expecting to end up paying more for the phone over the period in exchange for the convenience of lower upfront costs.
I can't remember the exact terms of unlocking in my contract, nor even whether the phone is network locked at all (I think most consumers don't really care, if I didn't like the plan they offered I wouldn't have signed up for it). I think it's free after a certain period of time.
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If you use non-Sprint content, it gives you a warning and a dialog box that I believe defaults to not continue.
(can't say I really blame them).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The handset locks are there for a different reason: rather than stopping you using your handset/hardware on another network, Network Operators are ensuring that handse
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I travel in Africa a lot and in many places out there, I cannot roam on my UK sim. So when I'm in-country, I simply remove my O2 sim, put it in my wallet, and load up a local sim.
I couldn't do this with an unlocked phone.
Both O2 and Vodaphone supply phones unlocked (except for the iPhone from O2) and this is a major reason I stick with these providers (depending o
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Surely you mean: I couldn't do this with a locked phone?
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In Sweden phone locking is not unusual, but far from the norm. Getting the phone and a contract separately is no problem what
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While this is true they can't just behave as badly as their US bretheren, or they'll get a good whacking by some EU commissioner.
Case in point: Their partially outrageous roaming charges where heavily capped this year, since they failed to regulate themselfs in any serious and tiemly manner.
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Afaict you can take most US mobiles anywhere in the US without paying roaming charges but in the EU you will pay roaming charges as soon as you leave your own country.
Well, let's see (Score:2)
Under the agreement, the price of making a call while abroad will be capped at 0.49 per minute, before VAT. While existing roaming charges vary widely, they are generally significantly higher.
from the same article:
A four-minute call home by a French customer in Italy costs 4.72 ($6.39, £3.19), while an Austrian phoning home from Malta would pay 9.51, according to EU data.
For your other reasoning (and that's a guess): A Verizon customer, residing in LA uses the Verizon network
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It was my understanding that Germany overturned the injunction against T-mobile which would have prevented them from locking people into an exclusive contract on the i-phones. In that case, I think the point is that Europe isn't as hard on m
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No, not really (Score:2)
The story is about exactly the opposite. The German courts say there is nothing wrong with it.
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About the unlocked phones... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:About the unlocked phones... (Score:4, Interesting)
A significant premium indeed, 600 Euro extra NOT to be locked into a T-Mobile contract. For that reason alone, you can be pretty sure that phones sold as unlocked, will stay that way (and functional). Consumer protections are pretty strong in Germany. If a firmware update would re-lock or brick those phones, Apple or T-Mobile would face a class-action lawsuit, and surely lose it.
Probably more interesting is how Apple will provide firmware updates for these unlocked phones, as compared to updating phones that are locked to a specific provider. If it works exactly the same for locked and unlocked phones, that should give clues for a reliable/safe hack (that doesn't risk bricking your phone with future updates). If the procedure is different, that should give good info as to what exactly makes the phone locked. Either way, the mere existence of legally unlocked phones should be a boon for hackers (thank Vodafone for this side-effect of the temporary injunction).
Although it's a nice piece of hardware, I'd rather throw my money at one of these OpenMoko [openmoko.com] phones (when they're released as consumer-ready).
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If a firmware update would re-lock or brick those phones, Apple or T-Mobile would face a class-action lawsuit, and surely lose it.
Two different things. My iPhone is unlocked, and yet I only paid 399 and have a T-Mobile contract.
You can (could) buy one for 999 without a contract. During the time the injunction was in place, T-Mobile also unlocked your phone (i.e. removed the SIM-Lock) for free if you bought one with a T-Mobile contract.
Why is that not just a technical difference? For me, it means for example that I can use the SIM card from my business phone for business calls without having to carry two mobile phones. Also, it means
reading comprehension (Score:2)
TFS says:
You said:
So, unless the summary is wrong (would be no surprise), it is incorrect to say they unlocked normal
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it is incorrect to say they unlocked normal 500-contract phones for free;
I have a 399 unlocked iPhone here to prove it. :-)
They responded to the injunction in two ways, because it had two parts. Part one, the SIM-lock, response: Remove it if customer asks for it. Part two, the 2-year-exclusive-contract, response: Sell for 999 without a contract.
In my case, I bought for 399 with 2-year contract, asked for the SIM-lock to be removed, and a few days (and a phone call) later, I could use my E-Plus SIM card in addition to the T-Mobile card it came with.
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There surely are no class actions in Germany.
However, Germany has a legal system in which it is feasible to sue big corporations a
German anti-hacking laws? (Score:3, Interesting)
Screwed like US now! (Score:4, Funny)
Other phones become a niche product with rising costs. Eventually nobody offers them, because they are less profitable.
You're getting the US cellphone industry. Enjoy!
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This new development changes all that. Why provide a good product if people are locked in?
Oh please... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but it's a friggin' cell phone. If you don't like the terms of service then don't buy one. I don't like AT&T so I'm not getting one.
Verizon, on the other hand, is opening up their network and embracing Android, which will hopefully start up the unlocked cell phone market in earnest. Shrewd move on Verizon's part, this will turn up the
Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh please... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's my stuff (ie, not leased, or rented, or otherwise owned by another party), then I'll be doing whatever the fuck I please with it, as long as it is legal, and nobody can stop me.
The free market works in a lot of different ways. The same ideology that states "if you don't like the Terms of Service, don't buy it" also states "if Apple doesn't want people fucking with the hardware they sell, then they should stop selling it to people."
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"A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual non-coerced consent of sellers and buyers, determined generally by the natural law of supply and demand."
They will just turn to leasing them then (Score:2)
Like others said, its a damn cell phone. It has convinced me that a touch only interface sucks for a phone and for typing. Sure you can do it but c
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Apple doesn't give a rats ass about what you do with the iPhone once you've bought it. Note, they're not suing people who unlock their phones, intentionally bricking phones, or doing anything particularly nefarious. In fact, they provide warnings that mention "This update could brick your phone". Apple
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You can do *anything* you want with your Apple phone. Run it over with a truck, throw it off a 12 story building, or install some hack to use it as it was not intended. Apple couldn't care less. Just don't ask them to honor the warranty or support it if you do any of the above. The hacked phones may work fine, as long as you don't ask Apple to maintain or improve it by downloading their u
Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I sell you something, you're free to do with it as you wish. Whether or not it is discounted (or even sold at a loss) is not a factor in your future use of that item. You own it. It is yours.
For example, there is a grocery store around the corner from my house which has been there since long before I was born. They discount their milk to such an extent that it is sold at a loss, in the hope that they'll recover some of that loss through additional (or future) purchases.
This is really a fairly common practice in retail, at all levels. [wikipedia.org]
Your mentality suggests that it would be OK for the grocer to dictate how one might use that gallon of milk, just because they sold it at a loss, or to punish someone for not buying more profitable items along with it. Both of which would be totally and obviously absurd.
But it is no less absurd when it is electronics instead of dairy goods. They're still just goods being transacted with money.
Your mentality is unhealthy. It defies logic, and goes against thousands of years of property ownership.
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Purchasing a cell phone that has been subsidized by a service plan is NOT like buying a loss leader like discounted milk. Do a little research before you start slinging insults.
There's a little thing called a 'contract' that you sign when you subscribe to that service.
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But even if I buy it WITH a contract, it's just a contract for AT&T service. I still get to use the phone however they want, on whatever networks I want -- I'm just obligated to continue to pay AT&T for the duration of the contract term.
Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Interesting)
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What does this mean? It means that companies CAN control what you do past the point of sale (or at the very least, the government can control what you do and can pass off th
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It also grants you the right to distribute the code, even modified versions, a right you wouldn't normally have under plain copyright law, but these grants do include some limits.
The GPL may not grant you as much freedom as some other licenses such as BSD, but the way it's structured is fairer overall, and designed to ensure that everyone will always continue to have the same rights to the code.
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999 euros?! (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the first thing I had noticed. Is that the true cost for an unlocked iPhone? I had thought selling a phone for $500 is insane, I might have yet to see everything...
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If you read some of Apple's statments when they released the iPhone they mention that they're figuring the revenue differently. They said that the revenue from iPhones would be spread out over the term of the service contract. My impression was that AT&T was actually paying Apple a share of the monthly service charges.
It does seem a little pricey anyway. Maybe T-Mobile was trying to discourage people from going for the unlocked phones.
Re:999 euros?! (Score:5, Interesting)
When Apple said that, they were referring to realizing the revenue for accounting purposes. Apple is spreading the realization of the revenue for the sale of the phone to the customer over a 2 year period. The reason for this is Sarbanes-Oxley.
Due to Sarbanes-Oxley, Apple cannot provide firmware updates to the phone that add features after they realize the full cost of the phone. To avoid a situation like with the 802.11n issue where they had to charge $1 for the update, they spread the revenue over 2 years and can then do firmware updates without running afoul of the law.
The actual price of the phone has nothing to do with this issue and the revenue from the unlocked phones would still have to be realized over 2 years to avoid legal issues with updates.
(basically, Sarbanes-Oxley says you cannot realize revenue for a sale until you have given the customer the entire product. I believe this was in response to Enron's practise of selling its own subsidiary oil, recording a profit from the sale, and never actually shipping the oil. Since they owned the subsidiary, it never complained, and they could turn around and sell the same oil again to someone else.)
My impression was that AT&T was actually paying Apple a share of the monthly service charges.
That is correct. This revenue is not part of the sale of the hardware, though, so it doesn't count with respect to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.
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basically, Sarbanes-Oxley says you cannot realize revenue for a sale until you have given the customer the entire product.
Sounds like someone needs to correct that law's definition of "the entire product", then.
... and then do the same thing in another six months when the second update comes out. Log
When I buy a phone, the product is simply what's in the box: a handset, charger, manual, and whatever software it comes with. If they release a firmware update six months later, I can't reasonably turn around and say "A-ha! Clearly this is the entire product, and you screwed me over by not giving me this software six months ago!"
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That said, I think you're right in your definition of "entire product". Considering that other hardware manufacturers aren't held to this standard regarding firmware updates, I doubt that the fancy bookkeeping is actually because of SOX.
The other theory I had when they announced the revenue model was that they were counting OTA iTunes purchases as part of the iPhone revenue. I wonder if a
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I don't know if there's anything similar with the iphone, but they are probably interpreting the requirement conservatively on the theory that it is better to err on the side of caution than to end up being
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This facility was allowed to banks for mortgages, etc., and Enron managed to persuade the Fed to do it for Enron too.
Sarbanes Oxley neither prevents nor allows it.
The Feds prohibited energy trading companies to do it.
Braindead laws... (Score:2)
Due to Sarbanes-Oxley, Apple cannot provide firmware updates to the phone that add features after they realize the full cost of the phone. To avoid a situation like with the 802.11n issue where they had to charge $1 for the update, they spread the revenue over 2 years and can then do firmware updates without running afoul of the law.
(basically, Sarbanes-Oxley says you cannot realize revenue for a sale until you have given the customer the entire product. I believe this was in response to Enron's practise of selling its own subsidiary oil, recording a profit from the sale, and never actually shipping the oil. Since they owned the subsidiary, it never complained, and they could turn around and sell the same oil again to someone else.)
Does anybody else think that Sarbanes-Oxley is barking up the wrong tree? Enron moved money without moving product. So regulators react by forbidding to move product without moving money. Hello, anybody home?
Shouldn't they rather regulate the way how companies interact with their own subsidiaries, rather than forbidding to give out "freebies" in general?
You know, there are other kinds of owner/subsidiary abuse that don't involve fake sales. Such as for instance putting employees that are meant to be
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Stopping things like Enron is hard, what don't you understand about this? They haven't just made all these procedures for a joke, it is to make more accountability, and for problems to be seen earlier, rather tha
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Yes, they should just have the don't do anything wrong rule. If you do something wrong, you get fined a variable amount, depending on the indiscretion. I don't know why this is so hard for people to get to grips with? They could extend this world to all law, not just business law. Seems simpe to me?
Thanks for the best laugh of my week. Sorry I have no mod points to mod you up.
It really is pretty pathetic watching geeks who know nothing about law or business trying to debate Sarbanes-Oxley with no information.
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Have you seen a dwarf do a fat chick? No? So indeed you haven't seen everything...
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what?
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That's the price you offer an iPhone for, if you don't really want to sell unlocked iPhones, but are compelled to due to some court ruling... It was the true cost in the sense that: truly - this is what you needed to pay.
Proof of an authorized unlocking mechanism (Score:2)
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So short of some kind of hack attack or raid on apples data center (both of which are 100% illegal and will probably get y
It's a neat phone, but.. (Score:3, Funny)
Brett
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Some of us like BBW ;-)
Also, keep in mind they do have GGG (German Goo Girls).
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wait, save some dough, buy unlocked in France (Score:2)
I wonder, though. How unlocked is unlocked? Will I be able to use this in the US? (I'm glad I kept all my surplus Euros from my trip to Germany in '05. Yay for currency speculation! Thanks, Bernanke, and thanks Ali Greenspan for setting this
What's wrong!? (Score:2, Insightful)
If most of the customers don't buy it (and they can choose not too, since markets are, for the most part, democratic), the product will be forced to disappear or change according to the needs
Anti-competitive behaviour (Score:2)
Permanently locking a handset to a single provider is anti-competitive. Suppose I sign up on a contract with and get a handset from Provider A, but half way through my contract, I realise that Provider B has a far better deal for me. Now if the handset is able to be unlocked, I can pay out my contract with Provider A and switch to Provider B without having to pay for a new handset. However, if the handset can't be unlocked, there is a significant disincentive to switching providers: not only would I have
But how popular will the iPhone be in Germany? (Score:2)
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T-mobile (Score:2)
France are selling unlocked though (Score:2)
It's more of a problem from an ethical / political standpoint.
No you can't just "not buy it" (Score:5, Insightful)
"But my cellphone is locked" - Buy another phone
"But my music doesn't play on other phones" - Buy music somewhere else
"But my internet connection throttles other music stores' bandwidth" - Get another internet connection
"But all the ISPs do it" - Start your own
See the problem now? ONE of these restrictions is not a problem because you can "take your business elsewhere" , but when you have this bullshit EVERYWHERE then there's nothing you can do. Now before people start mentioning we have unlocked phones. Yes, we have them TODAY , and laws against this bullshit is sensible to ensure we have them in the future. Now if you think the magical "free market" will save the day then you are mistaken on two counts:
a) That we have a free market.
b) That if we had a free market, it would remain free without anybody stopping companies from doing bullshit like this.
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Here's a quick lesson
step 1. Find a product people want (say, unlocked cell phones or a better service provider.)
step 2. Create the product and market it to those people.
step 3. profit
A free market protects the consumer indirectly by allowing/supporting competition.
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Exactly. The problem is formed by barriers to entry as a new competitor. Take the cell phone market. If you want to become a cell service provider, you need to provide nationwide (or at least state-wide) coverage. This means either leasing room on an existing network, or building or buying an entire network, which is too costly to imagine. Since the cost to entry in the market is so incredibly high, the existing players can in
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47*869#1235045
002 to reset the phone and stop it.
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You pay a set monthly fee, they give you either a cheap phone free or a discount off a good phone every so often as part of the contract. Your monthly fee is the same whether you take the new free/discounted phone or not. Sometimes the phones are locked othertimes not but they can usually be unlocked fairly easilly. Pay as you go phones are often slightly subsidised and are usually locked but since pay as you go tends to be used by people with