HTC Does What Google Wouldn't: Sell an LTE Phone That Sidesteps AT&T 290
schwit1 writes "You won't see it advertised on billboards or television, you won't hear it mentioned in a carrier store, and your less technologically-savvy friends most certainly won't know about it — but quietly, HTC's done something extraordinarily important this month: it's broken AT&T's stranglehold on its nationwide LTE network. It's a move that even Google, for all its money, power, and influence, didn't make with the Nexus 4. HTC is shipping both 32GB and 64GB versions of the One — an early contender for the best phone of 2013 — in a carrier- and bootloader-unlocked version that supports both T-Mobile and AT&T LTE. No strings attached."
News at elleven (Score:5, Informative)
Re:News at elleven (Score:5, Informative)
It is very common to be able to buy a phone without contract in the Netherlands, and then buy a separate sim-card somewhere.
You can do that in the U.S. as well. You will just pay the full price.
The reason why lots of cellphones are carrier-locked, is because the carrier subsidizes the purchase and charges less for the phone than the manufacturer does. Your brand new Nokia 6220 will cost Telfort 300 Euries, but you will only pay 49.95 if you sign a 2 year contract. So in that case, Telfort's business model to subsidize your new phone will be based on the assumption that you will use their service. In order to "force" you to do so, the phone is locked to accept only Telfort Sim cards.
This model has evolved to certain manufacturers doing only business with certain service providers and basically locking them in. For example, here in the U.S. the first Iphone could only be purchased at AT&T and thus would be sim-locked for the AT&T network.
The news here is that HTC now breaks that tradition and just offers their cellphone directly to consumers, simlock free. And that does matter.
Best phone for 2013 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Confusion? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:News at elleven (Score:5, Informative)
Verizon has sim cards now for the LTE network. I have a few devices (mini wifi router and 4g usb stick) and both require a SIM card; both are on Verizon.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:News at elleven (Score:5, Informative)
Re:News at elleven (Score:4, Informative)
With the exception of the iPhone, Verizon has never locked phones to their network, at least as the word "locked" is applied to cell phones.
VZW uses CDMA for voice. The only other US carrier to do so is Sprint. A VZW phone will work on Sprint, except for the fact that Sprint won't allow any phone they didn't sell on their network. It used to be that Verizon would let you put a Sprint phone on their network, though. Then Sprint went WIMAX for a while, and VZW went LTE.
In any case, there's nothing which keeps a VZW phone locked to their network. Not being able to use most of their phones on a different network is purely a technology issue. There are some VZW "world phones," which will work on other networks just fine.
Finally, with regard to locked iPhones, they will unlock them when your contract is done.
T-mobile no contract plan should shake things up. (Score:5, Informative)
But I am not so sure. Verizon has a huge cash cow, in the form of FiOS. It can use that revenue stream to undercut t-mobile and try to kill it instead of competing with it on a level ground. AT&T has inertia and corporate support helping it. I just hope T-Mobile succeeds just to bring sanity to this market.
T-mobile got the best deal in the failed merger with AT&T. Apparently that contract gave T-mobile 2 billion dollars if the deal was rejected by the Govt, and more importantly bandwidth in the edge network for T-mobile in some 50 markets. If it plays this hand of cards well, things should shake up in the mobile market in USA.