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Comment by CodeSheikh | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if US carriers can start discouraging consumers from using Huawei, ZTE cellphones. They know the IMEI numbers.

It's not the cellphones they're worried about, its the network infrastructure. A cellphone simply has access to the carriers internet connection, whereas building a carrier's infrastructure on Huawei equipment means Huawei can spy on whoever is using that network.

Not necessarily. If the devices used end to end encryption the pipes will be just dumb pipes.

That's a big "if".

How would this work? A monthly ZTE surcharge? The consumer already bought the phone. Retroactively punishing them when they already gave money to ZTE isn't the right solution. Just ban new phones from joining the networks.

ZTE is super popular amount the more "budget" carriers like boost, cricket, metro, etc. Not to mention their parent companies like Tmobile and Sprint which I'd still consider semi-budget carriers.

Source: Work in phone repair. We don't repair phones that cost 100USD new and have a non-existant parts market.

What is a “premium” carrier and what are they offering for the extra price?

Mostly just AT&T and Verizon, and Verizon is definitely the more "premium" one. I consider them premium because they cost more, they don't try to be the most affordable, they own other brands for that (cricket, etc.).

The biggest difference is their coverage. If you live in, and mostly travel within a metro area you're fine with sprint/tmobile, but anybody who's ever travelled will find that verizon is the only option if you work in, or go to the middle of nowhere at all. Basically Verizon has towers everywhere, including farmland that I can't figure out why they'd want to cover, but hey you get coverage while picking blueberries!

(This only goes for the USA, and includes my experience living in Michigan working in phone repair/retail, as well as my travels with other people/their carriers outside of Michigan)

This is true that Verizon (AT&T included) cover a lot more physical area. I was in the middle of the forest in northern Michigan, and the only signal out there was from AT&T. As it turned it turned out, T-Mobile allows you to roam if there is no T-Mobile coverage, so I was getting AT&T coverage.

I don't think Verizon can be considered high end, at least not definitively. Wherever T-Mobile does have coverage, their speeds are higher, and their offering of international roaming and by-default unlimited data are clearly geared to the "upper" end of the market of professionals that live in cities, that travel frequently.

"Our network support of your handset has been deprecated due to national security".

EDIT: I admit I was initially skeptical about the claims being made against Huawei and ZTE, but as more evidence arrives, I (personally) think caution is warranted. Critical infrastructure is a thing. Offer trade in/replacement rebates if you want to reduce friction during the device purge.

Not that it's desirable, but maybe they could (de)prioritize internet traffic at the infrastructure level from specific phone manufacturers now that internet neutrality isn't a thing anymore.

Illegal and unconstitutional. It's not up to the carries to dictate which phones work on their Network. That's the reason for standardization of network protocols

Do you really want, hypothetically, a phone maker, say Apple, to get into a sweetheart deal with AT&T and make phone service on non Apple IMEIs unreliable? Or for AT&T to target certain political, religious groups ....

Unconstitutional? The carriers are private companies, I'm not sure what in the Constitution would apply. (I'd agree with "illegal" for the same reasons Ma Bell can't require that you use one of their phones on their phone lines, but that's just because lawmakers decided it should be illegal; they weren't constitutionally obligated to make it illegal.)

It could be an antitrust problem (which wouldn't make it unconstitutional, to be sure.)

They are pseudo-governmental de-facto public utilities. They have been heavily invested in and subsidized by the government, and given special permission to provide vital infrastructure.

So no, they can't just do whatever the hell they want.

With that said, They SHOULD have a surcharge for ZTE phones, if they are hostile to their network.

I think I missed the part of the Constitution that prohibits a telecommunications company from determining which devices can operate on its network.

I guess I missed out on the unconstitutionality of many carriers not carrying Nokia Windows phones or Sony Android phones or Motorola phones...

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