71–80 of 90 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then the companies should not extend that loan/credit
Then a lot of folks who finance phones on cheap or free installment plans currently won’t get phones, simple as that. If regulators are fine with that, that’s a reasonable position I suppose. Carriers aren’t a charity to take on aggressive credit risk in these financial consumer populations. Incentives->outcomes.
Without provisions for equipment installment plans, this would likely end financing of phones by carriers (potentially pushing consumers to higher cost mechanisms, like credit cards or other traditional credit instruments). When locked, the phone is the collateral. Free and clear phones should be unlocked immediately.
...and automatically
Even if your phone is paid for, removing the lock is confusing and time-consuming friction that shouldn't happen. They make money by doing it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can easily get an unlocked phone in the USA, so it is more like "If you want an unlocked phone, buy an unlocked phone, and if want a mobile network to subsidize your phone, then you might have to deal with the terms of the agreement, including being locked to a mobile network".
Enough people seem to love artificially low up-front prices, even if it costs them more (in money and headaches) in the long-run. See: Spirit Airlines, Ticketmaster, and restaurant fees and tipping.
Restaurant surcharges are a mixed bag because so long as they're advertised at the door I think they're great, they make take-out cheaper. But Ticketmaster is just garbage and their practices should be strongly illegal because it's just fuck you pay more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that in Europe, some phones are still under carrier control, despite not technically being locked. You can resell the phone and use it with any carrier you wish, but as soon as the original owner stops paying the bill, the phone becomes remote-locked and turns into a brick. Samsung's Knox can do this, not sure which other brands also have that option.
Which is still significantly better than the system in the US. Most people make all their payments in time like they are supposed to, but are still affected by carrier locks. For example if I want to travel abroad and buy a local SIM for cheaper data, I'm out of luck, because AT&T won't let me use my phone. So I have to use their ultra expensive roaming plan or buy a secondary phone just for those few days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then the companies should not extend that loan/credit
Then a lot of folks who finance phones on cheap or free installment plans currently won’t get phones, simple as that. If regulators are fine with that, that’s a reasonable position I suppose. Carriers aren’t a charity to take on aggressive credit risk in these financial consumer populations. Incentives->outcomes.
Carriers will just make people sign two-year contracts at a guaranteed rate, plus an early exit fee. This is how all kinds of predatory scams work; the carriers will do just fine and low-income people will continue to get the newest iPhone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. In Canada, the phones are not locked, but if you terminate your contract before the term (max 2 years) you have to pay the remaining cost.
What happens if you don’t pay? I ask this out of genuine curiosity - I’m not sure what happens in the US either, I don’t believe they brick carrier-locked phones that a customer stops paying for but I’m not sure. But I’ve enough experiences with enough people to know this is probably actually a fairly common scenario and I wonder what the consequences are. (A surprising amount of the time, there are no real consequen…
I don't think people realize that the US is the only market in the world where phones are carrier locked, and in fact the only market where carriers have so much power over the features and overall experience of your phone. Mobile carriers dictate that a phone has to be sold with a locked bootloader. They decide if/when the phone should get OS updates. They are the ones who fill the phone with bloatware. Up until a f…
Keep in mind that in Europe, some phones are still under carrier control, despite not technically being locked. You can resell the phone and use it with any carrier you wish, but as soon as the original owner stops paying the bill, the phone becomes remote-locked and turns into a brick. Samsung's Knox can do this, not sure which other brands also have that option.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do other countries get subsidised phones with a phone plan?
In Canada, phone locking has been banned since 2017, with free unlocking being available to phones purchased before that. You can still get cheaper/free phones with your plan, but it won't be locked to that carrier, that would be silly. It's over a contract of some defined length, and you're bound by the contract to pay for whatever value's left of the phone if you cancel. If you paid for that phone by being subscrib…
P L E A S E The carriers are terrible about this. I have a Samsung sitting on my desk I still cannot use because I can't get it unlocked.