UK Proposes Plan To Ban Sales of Locked Mobile Phones (engadget.com) 36
The UK's communications regulator is proposing a rule to ban carriers from selling phones that are tied to their networks. From a report: O2, Sky, Three, Virgin Mobile and some smaller carriers already offer unlocked phones, but Ofcom wants the likes of BT Mobile/EE, Tesco Mobile and Vodafone to do the same. It's also seeking better clarity for customers about whether their handset is locked. While O2, Virgin and Three previously sold locked devices, they switched to unlocked phones in recent years. BT Mobile, on the other hand, sold unlocked devices until February 2018, at which point it switched to a locked device policy, akin to sibling network EE.
There is no reason for a regulator to allow it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless they are corrupted to the bone.
Unlocked phones increase competition and reduce e-waste.
Re:There is no reason for a regulator to allow it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless they are corrupted to the bone.
Unlocked phones increase competition and reduce e-waste.
The e-waste issue is exactly how you go after the obviously corrupt. Tax or fine the living shit out of those who prevent the recycling of any electronic hardware and make those shitty policies cost-prohibitive.
The only way you're going to effect change with Greed, is to speak in the only language Greed understands.
Re:There is no reason for a regulator to allow it. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Like most things in retail and service, psychology is of vital importance. Perceived value and actual value do not need to be that closely related.
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The law in Canada now forbid SIM-locking on new phones sold, and old phones must be unlocked for free.
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Bell and friends are trying to reverse the law due to the claim that unlocked phones are too easy for thieves. The claim is that they'll take pallets of phones from a truck and easily resell the unlocked phones.
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That seems like a nonsense argument, don't phones have a unique ID on them anyway, If not couldn't they? if the phones got stolen lock down all the phones with the appropriate serial numbers, better still track them find the culprits.
Re:There is no reason for a regulator to allow it. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about locking them to a carrier, an entirely different concept - which might make sense somewhere, but not in the UK. If the phone is on contract, you will have to go on paying till the contract is out, whether you use the phone or not, or they will remove your credit rating, and you will be subjected to harassment by people like "Dog the Bounty Hunter".
A lot of people have more than one phone, and would quite like to switch phones between carriers even though they keep both phones - or want to give one to a child or parent (or even partner) to use with their SIM.
Sure the carrier has to unlock it if paid (EU directive), but that guy with the kiosk in the high street will unlock it for half the price anyway.
All the lock does is piss off customers.
I have never understood why corporations love to slap their customers round the face with wet fish. We have the carriers anyway, hating them more us unlikely to have major benefits.
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If phones are stolen, you block them by their unique ID.
Your proposed solution doesn't work. I'm not condoning carrier locking. I think it's an overly harsh remedy, not justified by the problem. However, blocking stolen devices isn't necessarily possible. It only works if the other carriers agree to enforce the block. Within a region, carriers generally do honor one anothers' block requests, but carriers in other parts of the world often do not. There's a thriving trade in selling stolen phones in Africa, because the carriers there find it's not in their int
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It's how Apple does it. Apple prevents activation of iPhones that aren't sold to consumers, so you can steal a whole pallet of them and they will not be activated. When you get to the store and buy one, Apple gets sent the serial number and then allows it to be activated.
It's h
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They are actually free to have the phones SIM-locked in the pallets. As long as they unlock them when selling them to customers.
I really don't think it would be a worthwhile investment for them to do that however. It will just waste a lot of time when selling phones. As if SIM-locking ever stopped a thief.
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In the USA, the carriers are required to unlock phones once they are paid off. T-Mobile does this though an app that they install on the phones.
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This is a stupid rule. Do they also give you your home key only when you've finished paying your mortgage?
Once more, the USA pander to corporate interests.
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This is a stupid rule. Do they also give you your home key only when you've finished paying your mortgage? Once more, the USA pander to corporate interests.
While I don't disagree with your comment about pandering, I don't think you've thought through this analogy. The reason for unlocking a phone is the ability to change carriers at will. What do you think the home equivalent to changing phone carriers might be, and what does it have to do with the key to your front door?
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It might not be the best analogy, but still, there is no reason not to allow you to fully use your OWN phone, including changing carrier, just because you haven't paid for it yet. Just like having a mortgage on your home shouldn't prevent you from renting it to someone else.
If the carriers don't trust you will pay, then they should make you buy it outright, or charge you interest, or whatever. They shouldn't have the right to restrict how you use your phone and on which network.
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Except that it might. The mortgage contract could have an explicit ban on renting the property.
More importantly, and to show how silly your analogy is, you can't sell your house without paying off the mortgage.
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The mortgage contract could have an explicit ban on renting the property.
VA loans, FHA loans, and conventional loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prohibit renting out your property until after you've occupied it for at least one year. And even then, they might charge you a fee and/or increase your interest rate.
Of course, you could try not informing your mortgage holder about renting out your property. If you go that route, you'll probably need the rental income to pay your legal fees and support your family while you're in jail for mortgage fraud.
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Here's an article about it, seems I misremembered, it was armed robberies and phones going missing in transit. https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine... [www.cbc.ca]
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But the networks have found a loophole, like a 50GB/month contract of which only 10Gb can be used in other EU countries.
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I would guess that that Canada did not ban it entirely so that stores could continue to sell existing stock and older phones which may have been locked before the bill requiring free unlocking was passed.
Personally, I don't say any functional difference between requiring the provider to unlock the phone at no charge if it locked and prohibiting the sale of them in the first place beyond the possibility that not requiring the provider to unlock the phone for free may adversely impact the resale of older d
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I would guess that that Canada did not ban it entirely so that stores could continue to sell existing stock and older phones which may have been locked before the bill requiring free unlocking was passed.
The store should be able to unlock them when handling them out to the customer, isn't it?
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Of course they can.... that's the point. Where if the sale were simply banned banned without requiring that they unlock the device, they would not be able to sell the devices to the customer at all unless they also had the ability to unlock them. By requiring that they unlock the devices upon request ensures that the provider must have a means of unlocking any device they offer.
Not to mention, as I said, not requiring providers to offer this service at no charge negatively impacts the resale value of o
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they would not be able to sell the devices to the customer at all unless they also had the ability to unlock them
Well, they have that ability.
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True, but without the law requiring them to unlock a device on demand at no charge, they may still charge a premium for the service to sell any otherwise locked device, not to mention that they would still not be under any obligation to do so for a device that they may have sold *before* the law requiring selling unlocked devices only came into effect, meaning that without a law requiring that they unlock a device on demand, the law's effectiveness in achieving its ends will initially be very minimal.
I w
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The customer believes they're paying for a mobile phone service but getting the phone free when really they're paying for the phone on financing. Locking the phone might be argued due to this financing arrangement but that doesn't really make sense to me as something massively useful, essential or reliable in enforcing a customer sticking to their contract.
I'd assume what's sometimes happening is they're taking a risk, the financing won't pay
You also have to mandate that they accept your pho (Score:2)
If you have that on your side of the water already then bully for you, but here in the land of the free to be swindled carriers don't have to accept your phone even if it will work on their network. US Cellular won't take phones that aren't on their list even if they support all of the right frequencies, like my Moto X4 Android one edition. Consequently I'm on Verizon (yuck.)
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If you have that on your side of the water already then bully for you, but here in the land of the free to be swindled carriers don't have to accept your phone even if it will work on their network.
I'm confused. Why would you need to mandate a company not to turn away business?
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If you have that on your side of the water already then bully for you, but here in the land of the free to be swindled carriers don't have to accept your phone even if it will work on their network.
I'm confused. Why would you need to mandate a company not to turn away business?
because they figure that by turning away one person they may get two people to buy a new phone from them who wouldn't have done so otherwise
Logic (Score:2)
I therefore deem this pract
Option no subsidy (Score:2)
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It should be possible to separate the phone from the contract. Offer a phone on instalments and offer a contract separately. Of course this would go against the interests of the network - who know people will pay well over what they need in a contract, in order to get the best phone - and the manufacturers - who are perfectly happy with people buying a new phone every 2 ye