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Nobody gets it.
FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
251–260 of 286 posts
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same in Canada, we got a rare regulator win some time ago, much to the chagrin of our draconian carriers. Number portability too.
I don't get how this is a benefit to consumers? It's not like providers throw up their hands and say "oh, I get we'll need to take a hit on this one" They just adjust offerings and pricing to compensate for it. With locked plans, they are willing to offer the phone at a discount because they know the cost is offset by the value of the customer acquisition for at least 2 years. If they can't do that, then they'll just…
Yeah, I am willing to trade being locked to that carrier for a massive discount to my phone.
I hope this doesn't mean the discounts go away, because then it will cost me so much more to upgrade phones every few years.
It was only $350 for my iPhone 14 Pro at launch for example due to a $1000 discount with trade in. I just looked at the trade-in list and bought the cheapest one on the list refurbished from Amazon, which cost me $350. Traded that in and they gave me a new 14 Pro.
I have 0 issues being locked to ATT for 3 years as I need service and I like their service anyways.
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve even seen ones where the loan is “backwards”, and they’re getting more common - you pay full price up front and they give you statement credits each month!
How did we live like animals in the dark era before such innovative financial products?
Do you know that CEOs once had to settle for only a single summer home?
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#254Just adding a little bit of context about AT&T: I collect used cell phones, erase them, unlock when possible, and distribute them to unhoused people through several local food shelves, which allows those people to access benefits, housing, health care, jobs, etc which would otherwise be out of reach. With AT&T I can go to their website and unlock an old phone in minutes, allowing them to use a no-cost carrier like QL…
There's also huge e-waste and technological regression from shutting down the 2g and 3g networks. I have several perfectly good old phones that are now useless as phones. They were better phones than current ones, because they were smaller and used much less power, through the one weird trick of not containing what we used to call workstation-class processors. I don't understand why they couldn't make the current bas…
> I don't understand why they couldn't make the current base stations (they are SDR anyway) serve multiple standards. I had thought that was possible.
They can, but 2g and 3g are not built for sharing spectrum. They'd need to allocate a block of spectrum to each, and the minimum size blocks are too big. LTE and 5g can better share, so a block can use LTE compatible coordination with 5g for some slots and LTe for others. This should let LTE stay deployed for much longer (unless 6g can't be deployed in a compatible mode)
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Googles pixel phones have an unlocked bootloader I believe.
there's a setting in the developer options called OEM unlock which allows the bootloader to be unlocked It is still shipped locked. Unlocking wipes the device. It also doesn't work if your device is carrier locked.
Correct. And you still have to connect the Pixel to the internet before you can unlock the bootloader.
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it's not $10 because being locked to a major US carrier doesn't depress the price significantly.
Indeed. Anecdotally I’ve seen in a few places where the going rate for one carrier or another is actually a bit higher than unlocked because people aren’t that well-informed and think “I need a Verizon phone cuz I’m on Verizon.” Which was pretty universally true in the USA 15 years ago.
Before Verizon stopped using pre-LTE, most unlocked phones wouldn't work on Verizon. I imagine you get burned by that once, and then you pay attention longer than necessary.
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protip: Call Verizon and tell them refusing to unlock your fully-paid for phone can be considered theft in your jurisdiction and can result in criminal charges. They'll unlock it very quickly. The techs aren't legal geniuses.
Unfortunately not. I'm currently embroiled in a complaint with my state's public utilities commission with Verizon. Verizon's corporate reps 'upgraded' my grandfathered plan without my consent while switching devices, and their phone reps truly don't care about the threat of regulatory bodies. So even with an actionable legal threat and a case number, their phone support has not at all been responsive.
Ah so this is the real reason verizon has been pushing people to upgrade and sending new boxes.
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the average selling price of a stolen phone drops, the incentive to steal phones does so too. > Your argument is the same that carrying less cash would make you less of a target for pickpockets. It won’t. They will steal a wallet with no cash as fast as a wallet stuffed with hundreds. People don't tend to carry cash any more. And you know what has stopped happening as often as a result?
But what you are missing is that a carrier locked phone isn't worthless, it is worth quite a bit. A carrier locked iphone 14 sells for ~$400 on ebay, an unlocked one sells for ~$525. The carrier lock mostly just affects the owner of the phone, and the resale value when they are done with it. In completely unshocking news, TMobile also has a program to buy back t-mobile phones, unlock them, and sell them on. Stealing…
> But what you are missing is that a carrier locked phone isn't worthless, it is worth quite a bit. A carrier locked iphone 14 sells for ~$400 on ebay, an unlocked one sells for ~$525.
A reduction in average selling price is a reduction in incentive to steal, full stop. I'm not sure how you can argue with that. I'm not stating it's 100% effective, I'm not stating that it's worth the cost, all I am saying is that it is a disincentive.
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#259It is ridiculous that phones are still locked. Customers are on the hook for the full cost and equipment is now treated as a loan directly to the customer.
Makes no sense for carriers to hold the keys.
Re: FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what you are missing is that a carrier locked phone isn't worthless, it is worth quite a bit. A carrier locked iphone 14 sells for ~$400 on ebay, an unlocked one sells for ~$525. The carrier lock mostly just affects the owner of the phone, and the resale value when they are done with it. In completely unshocking news, TMobile also has a program to buy back t-mobile phones, unlock them, and sell them on. Stealing…
> But what you are missing is that a carrier locked phone isn't worthless, it is worth quite a bit. A carrier locked iphone 14 sells for ~$400 on ebay, an unlocked one sells for ~$525. A reduction in average selling price is a reduction in incentive to steal, full stop. I'm not sure how you can argue with that. I'm not stating it's 100% effective, I'm not stating that it's worth the cost, all I am saying is that it i…
Because my belief is that the number of thefts doesn't exist on a relatively linear curve, which would have to be true for your position to be correct.
My bet is that stealing phones is more like a thresh-hold. Does this crime pay > $x? Then I will do the crime. In this case I suspect that $x is well below the selling price of an unlocked phone. There isn't a gradual dropoff, at least not in the region between $400-$520.
I could also argue that carrier locked phones could have a paradoxical increased effect on theft. If the expected value of stealing a phone is lower, the average thief needs to steal more phones to make the same amount of money.