FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen | Hacker News Reader

FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen

androidauthority.com

412 pointsmiles274 comments

Just 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 QLink Wireless. With T-Mobile or Consumer Cellular (or many others) they just give you the finger. The phone could be e-waste for all they care.

How do they distinguish you from a phone thief? Is there some kind of check with the previous owner?

Unlocking from being bound to a cellular network.

I imagine the phone's previous account having removed the device/cancelled service without filing any sort of loss/theft claim would help. And then a red flag would be the unlock call coming before the previous account adds a replacement phone/cancels service.

Locking the phone to a carrier is not an anti-theft mechanism. They're available in abundance on the used market with no special protections of any kind from the carriers, the only difference is that they sell for a fraction of the cost because you're locked in to the single carrier.

Maybe you're thinking of the locking mechanisms built in to Android and iOS?

It is 100% an anti theft mechanism - it prevents people from stealing phones from carriers. The scam is: - get a new iphone from tmobile that costs $30 over 2 years. - don’t pay them anything: you just got a free iphone. Tmobile is mad and won’t provide service to that handset because you stole it from them. - You open a new line with at&t and tell them you’re bringing your own phone.

Carrier locking prevents this. If someone steals your phone on the train that’s a different problem with a different solution

sorry if this is a stupid question, but if you don't pay for the phone don't they repossess it or something?

No. They charge you and if you dont pay, they report your debt to credit agencies.

So your average phone costs $700-$800 retail new. Cost of repossession would be going to court, court costs, lawyer bills etc. I would end up costing $5000+ for a piece of used goods that is worth $300 if they are lucky.

That sounds like a speculation on a tangential benefit instead of the major consideration in locking phones. The carriers can blacklist any phone's IMEI at any point (in addition to the usual collections attempts, credit reporting etc) which achieves the same effect but better if a phone is stolen from them.

To be fair, that was an argument that was put forth by carriers years ago (at least in Canada). That said, I don't think it has popped up as much (or at all) in recent years.

It’s not speculation - this is literally why cell phone locking was invented. The imei blacklists were created much later specifically for theft, not to manage credit risk of customers getting subsidized phones.

You can literally just call your carrier to ask how to get your subsidized phone unlocked. There’s no need to speculate- it’s not a secret!

A) This isn't what OP was asking about. They're pretty clearly asking about stolen devices from a consumer, not consumers stealing devices from carriers.

B) Your take is complicated by the fact that there actually is a secondary market for locked phones [0], so this isn't just about people rent-to-owning a phone with an explicit installment plan.

[0] https://www.ebay.com/itm/186656753206

My point is that carrier locking is about managing credit risk and fraud, not an evil plot to trap customers, and not a mechanism for discouraging street theft.

It’s only complicated if people conflate issues or fail to understand the mechanics of carrier locking. You can just call up a carrier and ask to have the phone unlocked and they’ll oblige if its paid off. Sometimes people confuse carrier locking with imei blacklists, which is for stolen handsets. Sometimes people confuse phones with modems or firmware that only work with specific carriers as “carrier locked” but again, that’s not the same thing

They're essentially extending credit lines to people they know nothing about. Sounds like they should just stop doing that. Their "lock down the phone" solution should be illegal.

They’re not locking the phone for that, they’re adding a barrier to competition by adding friction being able to switch carriers.

That is a weird take which is not informed by an understanding of how business operates.

It is 100% an _exclusive dealing_ mechanism. (This is a term of art for a business strategy which may not be legal in the current context, by the way.) It was undoubtedly implemented because it's a way to make more money. Businesses love imposing exclusive dealing. It can reduce their competition and increase their margins. We have businesses all over the American economy doing it.

Now does this particular case of exclusive dealing also serve to reduce theft? Perhaps it does, a case can be made. But what is 100% certain is that anti-theft was not the motive for doing exclusive dealing. It's the other way around. The FTC recognizes that. Any nominally honest judge or business executive would recognize that. Anti-theft is an afterthought compared to the billions in profits at stake.

Back in 2012 there were international agreements which required us cellular carriers to enforce locking phones. Those may have been unwinded by now but it’s not a simple “just force the companies to do it” scenario

* citation needed.

https://www.cbp.gov/trade/free-trade-agreements/korea

This is incorrect. You can pay off a phone early and simply ask that it be unlocked - the carrier will happily comply because you are no longer a credit risk. You can also just purchase phones unlocked by paying cash upfront. You don’t need to be a genius to deduce how this works.

The imei blacklists for theft were created much later and aren’t honored globally

Where are they not honored globally in the first world bar Romania and Africa/China?

iPhones are effectively rendered useless even with IMEI blacklisting due to the iCloud tie-in. When stolen phones end up there, the receivers on the Asian end try and guilt/shame/social engineer the original owner to unlock from iCloud - but there's basically no technical solution.

For those that claim 'oh but the OEM parts resale value only' need to keep up with the news:

https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphones/ios-18-activation-l...

> the only difference is that they sell for a fraction of the cost because you're locked in to the single carrier

I mean, that’s honestly kind of a theft deterrent. One that’s distributed on average amongst the set of all stolen phones, but anything that reduces the average expected value of a phone thief is de facto a deterrent.

A theft deterrent that doesn't actual deter theft and solely benefits the carrier.

If I steal an $800 phone but can only sell it for $400 because it's locked to AT&T I've still sold it for a profit lol.

Plus what thief is checking your carrier before running away with it?

They just can’t make enough money off it, so find some other crime to do. Assuming it’s common enough.

The point is, it doesn't matter. They're selling a Locked iPhone instead of an Un-Locked iPhone.

Is the Locked Phone devalued because it is locked to AT&T or is the Unlocked phone at a premium because it is not?

It does matter, by depressing market value - if widespread enough to cause overall market value to be depressed.

Not sure what you’re getting hung up about.

You clearly already know what’s going on or you wouldn’t be able to write the last sentence.

Because carrier-locked phones to major carriers don't suffer a severely depressed price. AT&T has high market share it doesn't matter enough if a phone is locked to AT&T to prevent theft and depress resale prices.

If that was how these things shook out you two wouldn’t have anything to debate.

Honestly, I’m not even seeing the point of the debate. Even their argument implies they’re well away of it.

The point is that the cost of stolen goods is zero or near zero in this case.

The profit margin approaches infinity.

Opportunity cost and cost of consequences are far from zero.

Most criminals clear less than they would working minimum wage.

It only appears to approach infinity if you ignore reality and consequences, which is often how criminals think. But it is not the actual truth, eh?

Not at all, no petty theft is deterred by the criminal thinking, “oh no, what if it’s locked!”

They aren’t making a wage at all. They are doing something else.

They are spending time trying to get money by stealing and fencing things.

If they can’t turn around and sell/fence it for much, that definitely deters the ‘business model’.

If someone is doing this for 12 hours/day and clearing $100/day (or less) all said and done, that limits who and where that will happen.

If they are clearing $2000/day, that expands the pool a lot eh?

You can definitely see it in areas with predominantly iPhones as phone theft just isn’t a thing since Apple did their remote bricking thing.

>Most criminals clear less than they would working minimum wage.

I know people hate "Source?" as a reply but I think this claim really needs a source.

There is also the assumption that everyone has access to a job, which depending on where you are and what you're background is (we are very hostile to people with disabilities, physical "deformities" that people find unpleasant to look at, felony convictions, etc.) may or may not be true. A lot of folks turn to theft out of desperation.

It depends on what you mean by crime, income, etc. and what factors you consider - but as you note, people often start out desperate, and then escalate because crime doesn’t really solve the desperation. Some crimes do produce good income, relative to the same effort in a legal occupation, but most don’t. And in many (but not all cases) the people involved can’t actually get equivalent legal work. So it is difficult to compare.

However, [https://journalistsresource.org/economics/illegal-income-cri...] and [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004723522...]

Are interesting reading.

For the most part, crime doesn’t pay when you add all the costs involved. Society works very hard to make it that way.

Unless you’re pimping, higher up in organized crime, etc.

If you can only sell it for $10 when it’s locked, it’s a deterrent.

$10 is a lot of money to some people. It was a lot for me at one point in my life.

Sure, and some places you’ll get mugged over $5 or worse.

But it’s a lot more likely over $5000 right?

Ding ding ding, that's the key. There are some people who will mug you for any amount > $0.00. You can't make crime disappear by lowering the value. As that value drops, though, fewer and fewer people will bother as the risk/reward ratio shifts. You'll still have crimes from people desperately sick with drug addiction who need something, anything, to get more, and they're notoriously bad and risk/reward calculations anyway. You'll have fewer crimes from people who'd otherwise think, hey, let's go out and boost some phones for spending money.

No.

An unlocked phone is indistinguishable from a locked phone until you attempt to sign it up for another network. That distinction isn’t made until the phone is already stolen.

If I’m a thief, I steal the phone either way. Sometimes I get a carrier locked phone and only make $10 (realistically more. Carrier locked phones sell at a discount around 20-50%), or I get an unlocked phone and make $400.

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.

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 a $400 phone vs stealing a $525 phone is irrelevant to the thief.

What DOES stop thieves is activation and firmware locks. Phone theft is way down since Apple effectively made it impossible to use a phone that hasn't been logged out of. Those phones are only worth what their unlocked parts are worth, which is not that much.

> 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.

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.

Phone theft in areas with predominately iPhones went from ‘very common’ to ‘non-existent’ because of Apple’s remote bricking.

In theory there may be a point you’re describing, but in SF for instance people just started looting cars instead of mugging (or snatch and grabbing) phones.

Carrier locking is not firmware locking! Carrier locking doesn't disable a stolen phone. It disables the use of non approved carriers on the phone, stolen or not.

That's my whole point. Carrier locking used to be standard, even on iPhones, and phone theft was very common too. Carrier locking wasn't a theft deterrent.

Firmware locking is a great theft deterrent. A stolen iPhone is basically just a few cheaper used parts, and all the expensive ones are useless.

Both of these tactics reduce the sale price of a stolen phone.

One is extremely effective. One is marginally effective. But that still means both of them are effective just to different degrees.

Yes, but one harms the consumer far more than any possible benefit from reduced theft (again, I would argue that carrier locks don't reduce theft), and the other causes no harm to the consumer while providing a huge benefit by reducing theft.

Ok?

So we have a measure that is, at best, “marginally effective” as a theft deterrent by your phrasing and actively harms consumers while actively benefitting the entities that artificially impose it.

The only theft it is preventing is other carriers stealing customers from one another.

You seem to think marginal == zero. Which is the part that is confusing me.

You seem to think that I have said there is a marginal reduction in theft due to carrier locks. I do not think that is the case at all, and I have said so.

I am arguing that the reduction in theft due to carrier locks is 0. You are arguing that it is small (marginal).

I am saying that no matter what, the actual cost of the carrier lock to the consumer (as demonstrated by used phone values on eBay), is far higher than whatever marginal benefit you are arguing for.

It is a massive net loss to the consumer, and the only guaranteed beneficiary is the wireless carrier.

Okay, but that isn’t what the discussion was about eh?

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.

I was mostly asking because the comment I replied to wasn’t perfectly clear and I’ve read more than a few complaints about e-waste caused by people forgetting to release things from their account before tossing it. I think what they’re doing is a great idea and was curious how much hassle it involved.

This issue is about carrier locks. It doesn’t prevent a phone from being used, it just prevents a phone from connecting to a service provider that isn’t the original retailer’s

None of the carriers care if the phone is stolen, unless it's reported as stolen. They only care if it stays on their network. As a practical matter I have to work with the phone's previous owner to erase it (eg, an Apple phone that's been associated with an iCloud account, or a Samsung phone associated with a Samsung account). The carrier lock only matters after I've gone to the trouble of erasing it since I won't distribute a phone that hasn't been erased.

Reminded me of this YouTuber who bought 10 stolen iPhones for $1000:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26bdjJqWdCo (prepare for hundreds of jump cuts)

So far I have never handled a stolen phone as far as I know so I don't know much about that angle. What I get are peoples old iPhone 7's that have been sitting in a drawer for a few years. They are eager to donate them but have no idea how to get their personal data off them, so the work I do is sitting down with them and walking them through the process. I would say that's about 1 hour per phone including getting to and from the donor, teaching them how to reset their iCloud account password (or Samsung account, whatever) to erase the phone. When I get a carrier locked phone I sell it on eBay and buy an unlocked phone or a bunch of chargers and cables. I'm always happy when the phone is from Verizon or was bought unlocked, but AT&T is better than most.

Nice. I can imagine volunteering to do that. Or helping to wipe old hard drives or laptops. Sounds satisfying.

Do you also help teach them how to navigate the changes to each new version of iOS/Android? I would find that frustrating... so many "hidden affordances", and increasingly complexity.

At least on the 4g days there was such a thing as a lost and stolen device database that was shared between providers. When the phone presents its IMEI to the network the process that checkes it’s subscriber status also checks if it’s IMEI is on that block list.

In general they can't. They would only know if the IMEI came up as stolen in their database if it was reported.

It is carrier locked, not user locked. Just put in another sim card from that carrier.

Is there a way to get phones to you or information about how to do this myself? I am sure I could find similar programs if I looked but it sounds interesting.

T-mobile refused to unlock a phone I bought. A complaint to the FCC got that fixed right away.

Slightly OT, but as someone who escaped poverty this is the type of volunteering that is super helpful and makes a huge difference. A quick Google search doesn't turn up anything like this in my local area, do you have any pointers on starting/finding a program like this to contribute to?

I really what you are doing, I have been looking for a way to give back now that I am in a financially secure position and that sounds more impactful than just giving money. If you would prefer, I can be contacted at my username at google's email service.

I would begin with contacting an appropriate state department that helps those people and seeing if they know of any similar organizations, or if they provide grants for non-profit organizations that can assist people in poverty that way. California had quite a bit of money allocated for that, which led to some abuse of the system by a few of them.

Many charities are very happy with money btw, our local food bank prefers it and cites a 3x factor in “value” compared to food donations due to discount s they get when buying bulk.

Just saying, don’t feel bad for “just” giving money.

If I donate time or things I’m more sure it will be used as I intended.

Donate all the time you can afford!

Regarding monetary donations, if you believe institutional misuse outweighs efficiency gain, then your area food banks are in a much worse shape than my local area, which I hazard to guess is merely average.

Food banks can do so much more with cash, such as buy fresh produce from local farmers, than they can with your unwanted groceries, usually canned goods. Or if you're buying food specifically intending to donate it, do you really think the average person reading this (and 50% of you reading this are below average) is a better shopper with their $100 than the food bank is with $10,000+? Instead of shopping, spend that time with them, and still donate the same amount you would have spent.

I was surprised when I spent my own time and found out how much further they can stretch each dollar, and often provide healthier food.

If I donate cash to a food bank I have faith it will be put to better use than my uninformed intentions ever could.

I stumbled into this because I volunteer at three food shelves around Burlington, Vermont doing food distribution. At the largest one there is a day shelter with outreach workers and a kitchen serving hot meals. I gave a few phones to the outreach workers that I got from family members, and found that there was high demand so I just started posting on community forums asking people for their old phones. In a few cases I have replaced batteries or screens but if the phone is usable I distribute it as-is after erasing it and applying any software updates. I buy cables and chargers in bulk so I can deliver a complete kit. Almost all the work is sitting down with the donor and erasing it.

This might be the first positive thing I've ever heard someone say about at&t. Mad props for distributing phones though! If you wrote up even a brief guide as to how to do this and common pitfalls I'd do the same in my area.

How can I financially support you?

This is such a nice thing that you’re doing! Bravo and thank you!

Would you be accepting any phone(s) if shipped to you or do you have a group you would recommend that accepts shipments of phones?

Thank you!

I’m in desperate need of a phone. My current phone has a very cracked screen and I can’t afford a replacement.

Not sure if you trolling or serious, but these folks here are actually trying to help people in need.

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 base stations (they are SDR anyway) serve multiple standards. I had thought that was possible.

Because radio spectrum is limited resource. They are going to reuse 2g and 3g frequencies for new protocols.

> 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)

Upvoted in recognition of your activity, while "downvoting" the reality you report.

I should also mention that - while not directly accessible to homeless people - today it is quite easy to obtain new Smartphones, probably in bulk, which are quite usable with new version of Android and new apps, albeit not the most snappy, for something like 50 USD apiece (I just searched on AliBaba for example). I know such things can be quite legit technically, since I bought a a 75 USD smartphone individually, 10 years ago; and though it sometimes struggled a bit, it worked just fined. Only stopped using it because I was mugged, which was funny because the guy who took my phone was probably not happy he lifted something this cheap :-)

Anyway, that's an optional for buttressing your collection of used smartphones, to distribute.

I support this move as hopefully it will kill off the practice of carrier specific OSes.

The last carrier phone I bought was a Samsung Galaxy 4 from T-Mobile. I got a total of 0 os updates out of it because T-Mobile never released a new version of the OS (even though Samsung did). They just abandoned the phone.

At this point the most important quality of a phone to me is active security updates, so I'll never buy one where a carrier can get in the way of protecting myself from zero day exploits.

I don’t think this will make any difference—SIM unlocking is totally separate from phone firmware

OS and the bundled sleazy apps and injected ad networks are a big positive cost center for american telcos.

>At this point the most important quality of a phone to me is active security updates, so I'll never buy one where a carrier

you have no ideia how little of minority this type of thinking is! :(

It would be nice if security updates were more friendly, and not bundled with feature updates (ever). Having to go through a whole song-and-dance, only for the OTA update to fail for one reason or another: not endearing. Worst of all: they stop coming just when you've become really familiar with your phone, after a few years.

Yup - it's why the iPhone wasn't on Verizon for years - Verizon insisted on being able to "customize" the iPhone and Apple told them to pound sand.

As a years-long happy Verizon and iPhone user I'm glad they did!

Now I wish they would do the same thing to the EU wanting to "customize" the iPhone... (e.g. forcing USB-C)

Yeah, I agreed with the usb-C law until I realized how easily usb-C cables snap compared to the alternatives lol

I've never seen a usb-c cable snap, and lightning doesn't look much sturdier to me.

Lightning is definitely sturdier, but I don't think that's enough to outweigh the benefits of USB-C. USB-C is much more universal.

Regardless of whether lightning is better than USB-C or vice versa, I am more worried about the general principle. The only organization that has a track record of building smartphones that I enjoy using is Apple. It's certainly not the EU. Thus I want Apple to be able to make design decisions as freely as possible because in practice that seems to result in a good product. I'd make an exception for things that are OBVIOUSLY blatantly uncompetitive (refusing to support modern interoperable replacements for SMS might be in this category, but I don't think what charing cable you use is).

> OBVIOUSLY blatantly uncompetitive

Lightning was/is the most blatantly money grabbing technology ever.

The reason Apple stuck to lightning is not because they liked the design, or because it was superior (it wasn't). It's because you have to license the connector to use it. Every single lightning cable sold, whether it be from Apple or not, Apple made a pretty penny.

Running such a racket at the expense of consumers is bad. Someone had to step in, because it was becoming increasingly obvious Apple had 0 intention of ramping down the money grubbing.

Well 52% of Americans use iOS and 31% are Samsung which now get 7 years of support so I think that's actually a pretty large majority now.

This argument would only make any sense if you believed that the reason Americans were buying from Apple and Samsung was for their software update policy, which I'm pretty sure you don't.

I think you could argue people are buying them for longevity, and these measures increase their perceived longevity.

I know a lot of iPhone users who will only buy iPhones because of their longevity. They'll keep them for many generations, and they simply don't have faith in Android phone brands to keep up that long. Phones are large purchases, sometimes financed, like a car. So when it comes to buying, some consumers treat them like cars. They weight reliability and longevity very high, and they'll often buy slightly used phones. A generation or two old iPhone is really still top of the line.

A lot of that is marketing perception but there's also some truth to it.

Samsung only offers the 7 years of support for their flagship series of phones. The majority of phones they sell are cheaper ones that do not get that support.

No it won't, not unless it's specifically addressed in the law.

The EU (or at least most of it) has banned SIM locks a long time ago, but carrier-branded Android phones are still a thing.

In fact, the situation here is even more pernicious, there have been news reports[1] of carriers being able to remotely lock your phone down if you stop paying the bill, or if you buy it used and the first owner stops paying the bill.

[1] Polish https://niebezpiecznik.pl/post/plus-instaluje-cos-na-ksztalt...

I'm not from Poland, but they probably have prices similar to ours ... data plans are cheap, you have credit cards with offers for zero interest plans over 12 or 24 months, and the mobile carriers are unable to offer discounts like the used to, not to mention that exclusivity deals for devices are not a thing here.

So why in the world would people still buy phones from their mobile carriers?

Here its basically 3 phone brands (Google, Samsung and Apple) and although the brands sell unlocked direct most people get deals to get phones massively discounted by signing up for two years of service or something like that. Carriers lock the phones until they are fully subsidized and paid off and theyve made their money back. unlocking immediately breaks this business model.

I bought Samsung S21 from some shady reseller because original Samsung store was trying to steal my data by a promotion where I need to give them my bank account number and they will send my 20% of phone price back, then when I returned with phone to home and turned on phone I saw a message saying "this phone is a property of Polkomtel (on of carriers operating in Poland), it will be locked if you stop paying the bills", shady reseller agreed to replace my phone with another one not fucked up by a greedy carrier who is making incomes private (selling expensive phone in subscription model for people with no credit rank, often abusing this subscription model as low rate credit (they are goi g from carrier straight to lombard) and making loses public (they will lock my phone if someone dont pay)

I'm always mildly annoyed that "Unlocked" can mean three different things with phones:

* Able to be used on any carrier (i.e. no SIM lock)

* Able to be rooted/jailbroken (i.e. no bootloader root of trust lock)

* Able to be accessed (i.e. no screen lock)

This article is talking about the first one. There isn't much confusion possible in the title, especially with the dissenting carrier names highlighted.

Is there a term for this sort of linguistic conversion? On one hand, it's part of what makes natural languages so powerful--we can use the word language to mean English, Haskell and pheromones. On the other hand, it leads to confusion when we're overly parsimonious with fun words, e.g. plasma.

The term is laziness. Instead of creating or searching for a more precise word, an ambiguous word is used. As another example, see the renaissance of the gender neutral pronoun "they".

> Instead of creating or searching for a more precise word

This doesn’t work, though it seems to be a common misconception among engineers. Put simply, people will nickname neologisms. Creating a new term or pulling one from obscurity virtually begs for someone else to come up with a name people will actually use for you.

Perhaps semantic overload? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_overload

This confusion is especially annoying when trying to purchase a bootloader unlocked phone on secondary market. I'm not even sure it's possible if you buy through a dealer. By unlocked they exclusively mean carrier unlocked.

That term would be ‘jailbroken’ right?

No, jailbroken means that you make the device do something that manufacturer prohibits (breaking out of a jail). Unlocking the bootloader where the manufacturer supports unlocking the bootloader is using it as designed. The correct term is "unlockable bootloader", not unlocked. No one ships a production device with an unlocked bootloader.

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.

I've only ever heard "jailbroken" as using exploits to take control of a device that is intended by the vendor to be locked down - hence, breaking out of jail. I've only ever really heard of it being a term on iOS devices - on Android it's known as "rooting".

Bootloader unlocked generally means that the vendor permits the execution of arbitrary operating system code, ie there is no jail to break out of.

I'd understand jailbreak as escaping the jail via some vulnerability of sorts, which might not even be persisting.

In fact If I saw jailbroken in a listing I'd assume it's because the device cannot have its bootloader unlocked.

I've never heard of this disambiguation. An unlocked cellphone has always meant (1). A rooted or jailbroken phone means (2). For three, why would it make sense for manufactures to advertise a phone with/without a lock screen? It doesn't make sense.

Android lets you turn off all the lock screen security. Also before smartphones this wasn't even a thing, flip phones didn't even have a lock screen. Don't know if that's changed nowadays.

Sure they had, it was just not in frequent use. See page 75 of manual for SE T68i (2002) for example https://archive.org/details/manualsbase-id-62423/page/74/mod...

Neither of those sound like screen locks, they both mention it only happens when turning on your phone.

The Nokia 3210 had a screen lock although that was designed to stop accidental button presses.

I assume the top reply was referring to "OEM unlocked bootloader/fastboot"

The FBI famously wanted an iPhone unlocked in the third way.

Advertising isn’t the only context where these terms are used… In usual conversation “is your phone unlocked?” could mean 1 or 3

Alternatively: when Siri tells you "you'll need to unlock your iPhone first", it doesn't mean "please jailbreak your phone".

> In usual conversation “is your phone unlocked?” could mean 1 or 3

Is that really something that gets confused often or any more often than any other disambiguation in the English language?

Just to add to what others have said, the last time I rooted an Android phone (Pixel 6), I had to run:

    fastboot flashing unlock_critical

So it seems that at least in some contexts, "unlock" can refer to the bootloader (sense 2 above).

Also I wasn't as clear as I intended to be with sense 3 above - it might also mean temporarily screen-unlocked, as in "can you please unlock your phone so I can enter my number?".

I was hoping for unlocked bootloaders - but nope

Separate from phone hardware not being locked to a particular carrier, I'm especially interested in phone hardware not being locked to a bootloader.

Currently, Google Pixel hardware units bought through some carriers can't have GrapheneOS installed on them, because that carrier chose to disable "OEM Unlocking" of the bootloader.

Verizon in particular. My Pixel 3 is still more than capable hardware-wise, but it's years out of software support. I could get much more use out of it, but the bootloader is locked and Verizon will not unlock it, so it's e-waste.

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.

I’d like to see a video of this working as it seems improbable. Techs are legal geniuses but seems like they’d have a script that boils down to “so sue us.”

I doubt this. Unlocks can be done by T4 support but legal threats will kick you to a separate system that will not respond to requests that quickly.

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.

> My Pixel 3 is still more than capable hardware-wise

My Pixel 3a has started spontaneously shutting down; at any given moment, it may spend an indefinite amount of time in continuous boot-and-shutdown loops that render it unusable.

That is kind of impossible for the FCC to regulate. If they mandated that, everyone would be able to install any OS on any hardware, notably iphones too. And that won't happen. If anything, FCC is anti software freedom. A lot of bullshit shenanigans that manufacturers pull (wifi whitelists etc.) are to please the FCC.

So don't buy phones from carriers? You can find a cheaper plan without a phone and then add a device you can use on any network, with the manufacturer's software.

I was abroad recently, and my mother couldn't get service because her phone was SIM locked by cricket and the requisite six month period haven't passed for it to be eligible for an unlock. She had bought her phone full price from Cricket. If she had purchased the same phone for the same price somewhere else, it would've come unlocked.

Cricket phones are generally subsidized

Cricket once switched network types from CDMA to GSM (or whatever the terms are). That happened a couple months after I paid full price for a cricket-branded Samsung Galaxy S4, and it bricked it. It was no longer usable on cricket. It wasn't usable on any other network, either.

Depending on which phone, it may have actually cost a bit more than what she paid to get an unlocked phone. I always buy unlocked, but Best Buy charges an extra hundred bucks compared to the "activate with your carrier" version!

I didn't know that part!

My friend bought an android phone from AT&T. Recently she unlocked it, and she was able to use other sim cards, but the phone was still branded with the AT&T logo and loaded with its software. The phone can’t make any over the air updates because it relies in AT&T to fetch carrier specific updates… which fails when she switches providers.

I’m torn because it’s either flash unofficial firmware from the internet or live without security updates until she buys a new phone, both of these undesirable from a security perspective. The phone was just released 4 years ago and it is in good shape; but all that flies out the window because of this and related stupid practices.

I’m not sure if that is also addressed.

IMO allowing OTA updates to go through through the mobile provider was Android's biggest mistake. Their reputation and platform integrity has been irreparably damaged because of it.

This is pure speculation, but is it possible that Android never would have been successful (or as successful) if they did not bow to the carriers? By taking carrier-friendly positions they built a symbiotic relationship that resulted in the carriers being happy to promote their phones.

Apple didn’t bow to the carriers. You can speculate that only Apple could have done that, but Google’s deference to carriers has continued with RCS. Given their market position now, I think it’s just a preference in doing business.

The thing is that Android is open source (at least nominally). So having Google refuse carries the ability to customize it would be like having the Linux project say that companies can’t ship their own distros.

Google could have applied pressure on carries via some sort of “Certified Android” label but realistically this is very different from iOS/Apple where the hardware and software are closed and made by the same company.

Google Play Services, which is damn near essential these days, is not open source by any means.

They might have had a harder time applying pressure on carriers early in Android's lifetime, but there is so much momentum in the ecosystem now that they can do it easily IMO.

Ironically, Android being an "open platform" competitor to the closed iPhone was one of its major initial selling propositions.

Andy Rubin, 2008: "A developer will be able to use it as a platform and they'll be able to develop their application on the Android platform. But also because of its openness, a developer will be able to modify the platform, make the platform better. Therefore, because the platform is open, we think Android is somewhat future-proof." https://www.cnet.com/videos/t-mobile-launches-g1-first-googl...

Could she just get a friend using AT&T put their sim in her phone to have it updated?

Can't the operators just sell unlocked phones with monthly installments instead? The installment plan will then include free service for some amount of data/minutes. If the user chooses to switch operator, they are still bound by the installment contract to pay off the phone.

Yes, but let’s just say you got a 1200 device and only made the first two payments… jump to another carrier and abandon the one with the finance plan. What’s the recourse for the carrier?

Small claims court? Inability for the debtor to get a loan for even another phone (or a used car or whatever) for a period of time?

It's messy and expensive, but perhaps it should be messy and expensive.

The same recourse any other lender has for a borrower that defaults.

I bought a car, but then decided to not make the repayments.

What's the recourse for the lender?

To be fair, car sellers have also started things like being able to brick your car if you're behind on payments. Or, for the up and coming ones, have the car just drive itself back to the dealer (Ford).

can you share a link to this for story happening?

https://stateline.org/2018/11/27/late-payment-a-kill-switch-...

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2361657-ford-patents-ca...

Ford got a patent for the idea.

a patent is VASTLY different than it actually taking place. The number of patents that get filed but never actually implemented could fill the grand canyon.

Cars are repoed when payments aren't made.

> jump to another carrier and abandon the one with the finance plan. What’s the recourse for the carrier?

Subprime auto lenders use “electronic devices to remotely shut down vehicles” [1].

Carriers could install remote management profiles on phones financed for subprime borrowers. If a borrower defaults, the loan is sold to a collector and phone erased and put in lost mode.

It isn’t pleasant. But neither is being locked into a phone plan you don’t want.

[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/03/14/car-lenders-...

The GSMA has a blacklist system. Participating carriers can blacklist a stolen / fraud / nonpayment phone IMEI and all the other blacklist members will agree to also ban that phone from their network. The problem is that people won't make payments, sell the phone for cash, and eventually the phone ends up in places (China, UAE, Nigeria, Russia, ...) that don't participate in the blacklist.

The right compromise should be that they have to unlock it when you've paid off the phone in full.

Currently the carrier will publish the phone's IMEI to a central blacklist, so the phone can't be used with any carrier that subscribes to the blacklist. Also iPhones can be activation blocked via Apple, which is entirely independent of the IMEI block done by carriers.

Credit reporting and collections.

There's a reason carriers pull credit reports for post paid accounts and 'free' phone promos right?

Although, personally, I prefer to be on the prepaid side of the carrier. I'm not getting a promotional phone, and I'm not paying for it in my monthly rate, so if my phone works for more than two years, I'm saving money. And I don't really need to use secret handshake financing... I'd rather pay $17/month for my plan and pay for a phone when I need it.

That said, T-Mobile tried being the 'uncarrier' and charging fairer prices for service and financing phones directly, and it must not have worked as well as carrier norms because they reverted to secret handshake financing.

> Credit reporting and collections.

This has a loss rate of around 70-80% across the collections industry, which is an extremely strong disincentive to go this route since it's just highly inefficient. The high cost of the collections process is a deadweight loss upon all society.

There is no credit check with T-Mobile. In fact, even if you have bad credit, and you have had service with them for a year, you can get a phone on contract.

T-Mobile still finances phones directly and equipment payment plans are clearly separated out from service charges

A year ago they ran a credit check even just for home internet, anecdata of 1.

People made the same argument in Canada but they changed the rules so you either get an unlocked phone or they have to unlock it upon request. Yet there has not been widespread issues of this happening. They can still ding your credit & there is only a small number of carriers so you can only do that so many times before you are going to have serious issues if you don't care about your credit or collections.

Also you can still get the phone unlocked without the carrier anyways if you really want to so it would not deter anyone who really wants to run off with the phone anyways.

So make the device unlocked with the ability to lock it back if you fail to make the payments.

That wouldn't qualify as truly unlocked, though

That’s how it should work. My understanding is that the carriers (probably correctly) assume that there are more people who will buy a cool phone if they don’t think about it as a short term loan – and then keep paying the same price after the phone is paid off. If they had to say “$900 in 24 payments of $50” more people would decide they don’t need the “Pro” model and the carriers would be forced to compete with the banks on financing terms.

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?

I'm not sure about other carriers, but for the past few years now that's how it's been on Verizon. The only lock in part is they waive interest as long as you stay a Verizon customer until it's paid off.

That is how it works in Canada now. If you cancel your contract, you have to pay the remaining balance immediately. No fees, just the remainder.

Well, kinda. Carriers can work around that by marking up the retail price so e.g. you have a $480 phone that the carrier sells for $700, or lets you buy for $20/m over a 24-month term with a promise to clear the $220 balance if you make it to the end of the term, so it's effectively a penalty if you cancel early.

Yeah, or you spread the regular retail price over X months with no interest and the carrier takes the manufacturer subsidy.

The real catch is that they typically require you to be on a high end non-BYOD plan, which keeps going up every year. I prefer to buy the device outright and minimize the plan cost.

The point is to lock the user into a contract with the carrier. By binding the phone to there service they make it unlikely that a user will switch providers as that would need a new phone while still paying off the old phone.

That's why they'll offer these phones at low or no interest plans, so they can pull in the $50/month subscription for the years that the phone is being paid off.

What's the difference between giving away a $1200 phone in exchange for a 2-year contract which costs $50 extra per month,

compared to a plan which costs $50 less per month, and a BNPL plan attached to the carrier which costs $50 per month?

> What's the difference between giving away a $1200 phone in exchange for a 2-year contract which costs $50 extra per month

That phone is generally not given away - the only phones "given away" are generally low end. $1200 flagship phones come at the cost of a contract on the line AND a monthly payment for the device that pays for it in full.

The last 3 phones I purchased, it was a choice between

- plan + buying new phone + no contract

- plan + phone "free with plan" + increase in plan cost because of phone + 2 year contract

For one pone, the first was a clear winner. For another, it was slightly cheaper to get it with the plan (2nd option). For the last (iphone) it was the second option, but there was no increase in plan because of it.

So, the "cost" of the phone can vary a lot, and taking the time to figure it out is well worth it.

If the monthly payment pays for the device in full, what's the problem with a customer ending the service contract while continuing the monthly payments?

If the monthly payment doesn't pay for it in full, why not just make the monthly device payments $n more, and the cellular service payments $n less? That way you don't need to worry if the service plan is cancelled, because the device payments would still be due (or a lump sum payment would be due).

Because they don't make much on the device payments, as opposed to the bloated plan fees.

You’re thinking about it from a consumer point of view. From the carrier point of view, they don’t want it to be easy for you to decide to switch to another carrier (They want their service to have a high switching cost). So they have various roadblocks like this, to make it a bit more frustrating to switch carriers. Of course they can’t make it too difficult where they would face legal pushback, so there’s a lot of stuff like this that feels random or suboptimal from a technical point of view but helps their bottom line in aggregate.

Remember back when text messages or phone calls were free as long as you messaged/called someone on the same carrier? That wasn’t about passing on savings of actual interchange fees, it was about incentivizing you to be loyal to your carrier and get your friends on board as well.

I think the manufacturers should do the payment plans. Then carriers can be selected on basis of quality for customer over lock in effect

You can with Apple.

Or literally any phone in EU.

About a year ago there was a change to that. If you want to buy direct from Apple and make monthly payments instead of paying all at once they require you to choose one of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or Boost.

For some models of phone you are then required to enter a valid phone number for that carrier, and proof that it is your number, in order to be allowed to add the phone to your order.

For other models they don't ask you to enter a number and you can go ahead and complete your order.

Note: the phone will arrive unlocked, so you are not stuck with the carrier that you specified when ordering. From what I've read the phone will arrive configured to use that carrier, but during setup when it asks to setup your number just tell it you want to set it up later. It may ask more than once. Just keep saying you will do it later. When setup is finally done, you can then initiate setting up any carrier you want.

Here's how it currently works for each phone model.

• 16 Pro: not required to enter number, except if you choose Boost as your carrier.

• 16: required to enter number.

• 14 and 15: required to enter number for all carriers except AT&T.

• SE: required to enter number if you choose Verizon or Boost, not required if you choose AT&T or T-Mobile.

Before the 16 came out the pattern was similar. The 15 Pro did not require giving your number. The non-pro 15 required giving you number no matter which carrier you selected. The 14 and SE required it with some and not with others.

An alternative approach that I've seen several people on Reddit claim worked for them was to select to pay in full using their Apple Card when the ordered, which allows ordering without selecting a carrier. Then they call Apple Card customer support and say they would like to switch that charge to Apple Card Monthly Installments.

In summary, if you want to buy from Apple on a monthly payment plan:

• If you use AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Boost no problem. Go ahead and give your account information.

• If you use some other carrier and are buying a phone other than a non-pro 16, choose AT&T as your carrier, and then decline to activate AT&T during initial setup. After that you can initiate activation with your carrier.

• If you use some other carrier and are buying a non-pro 16 the only option seems to be to select to pay in full, put it on your Apple Card, and then get Apple Card customer support to switch it to installments.

There is a reason US cell rates are so high. That reason is because of lock-in.

If they did what you want, rates would fall, as would their profitability.

I expect them to fight this tooth and nail.

People have been able to buy unlocked phones and use them without a service contract for over a decade in the US. In recent years, you can even change mobile networks from your couch with a few taps via eSIM.

The US has 3 mobile networks, and it’s a massive country with massive infrastructure needs. I imagine costs must be at least a little bit higher to offset the need for more infrastructure per customer.

Yes, but not everyone knows how this all works, and the barriers that are still in place do still effectively limit many from shopping around. Many people shopping for phones in the US will visit a wireless retailer and will be funneled to locked phones on contract.

They really aren't expensive anymore in the US if you shop around. You can get unlimited data, talk, text for $18/mo per month from US mobile, and you can even choose which network to use Verizon, tmobile, or ATT. US mobile has a new feature that lets you switch the carrier network for $2 per switch.

I wonder how much those cheap MVNO prices are subsidized by everyone who has a contract directly with the carrier though. Going directly with Verizon or AT&T is super expensive compared to Europe. At the end of the day, someone needs to build & maintain the physical infrastructure. I don't know if the carriers could keep operating if everyone switched to MVNOs, they might not have enough revenue to maintain the infrastructure. North America is pretty large and not densely populated.

That being said, the major carriers here absolutely suck and utilize very scummy business practices that aren't that far off of a payday loan place. Financing an iPhone with Verizon really isn't that far off of payday loan rates, it's a horrible deal.

MVNOs do not guarantee the same level of service as the main flagship carriers who actually own and build the infra. I'm a customer of a MVNO that uses Verizon network. If I go into a crowded area, I can definitely see some traffic deprioritization happening to my traffic but I'm willing to make that tradeoff for saving a ton of money (majority of the time I use my phone on Wifi anyway).

But since I switched, I have convinced several other family members to also switch to a MVNO to save money. It will be interesting to see what happens if a lot more people make the same tradeoff. I wonder will they just intentionally make the MVNO experience so horrible by throttling to get everyone to upgrade, or they will just increase the rates on the MVNO plans so there is not a substantial difference anymore?

I just got an idea for the opposite. Buy a phone with three years worth of service together with the phone. Extra features are extra money. 36 months x 40$ per month plus the cost of phone ($600) = $2040. Add discount for loyalty (-$800). Free phone and more.

It’s impractical to “repossess” phones so in practice the carriers wouldn’t be able to stop people from deliberately defaulting on the contract with no repercussions (they can bring it to a different carrier who is indifferent)

Yes, but the reason they don't do this is because "free phone" sounds more enticing than "$22.95/mo installment plan for 2 years".

There's a growing segment of the American public who thinks contracts are fake so they would probably sign up for a "free" phone, unlock it, sell it, and then insist on breaking the contract with no penalty because they "didn't understand it and it was unfair anyway". It would be the new "Chase ATM glitch".

That's how it works i EU (or at least the majority of it).

Also, it as it is far easier to buy a phone with an installment plan than to get a cash loan, it's very common to see brand new, unboxed phones sold on the second-hand market. People sell the phone for cash and use the installment plan as an interest-free loan payment.

Wow, I forgot SIM locks were still a thing. Here in the EU this has been dealt with like a decade ago or so.

most places in the world theres little sim lock, there's mandated number portability, and there are regulations from marking up the price of the phone to artificially make people breaking contract early to pay a lot. ...and there's the usa.

doesn't the US have number portability too?

https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portabilit...

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 sell undiscounted phones. Which is what consumers can do today anyways.

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.

I don’t understand the justification for 60 days or for carrier locks at all. If a phone company wants to impose a requirement that a phone will not operate at all if money is owed for its purchase and hasn’t been paid, then maybe I’d be okay with this. But for some reason carriers seem to think it makes sense to prevent, say, using dual SIM mode with their SIM and a second SIM from a different provider for 2 years or 45 days or 60 days or whatever. This makes no sense.

I’m also a bit surprised that Apple plays along with this. Apple surely has the market power to just say “sorry, no more carrier locks”.

You cannot go to a AT&T store to buy a phone and then use it on tmobile’s network. That’s why there is a 60 day delay. For 60 days you pay AT&T for a service contract.

> You cannot go to a AT&T store to buy a phone and then use it on tmobile’s network.

Why not? You're paying them for the device. Why should they have a right to stop you using it how you want? Imagine if buying a car also came with a requirement to only use the dealership's petrol stations for the first year.

Because the devices AT&T sells are subsidized and come with a network contract.

You can go other places to buy unlocked phones.

I don't buy carrier-locked phones anymore, personally.

Generally they are sold at a discount, with the deal that they will make back the discount if you use their service. You can buy an unlocked phone new from the manufacturer but then you will pay full price.

Are they actually discounted? Where I am in Europe they don't do that anymore, it's usually cheaper to buy the phone from Amazon - if you can afford the up front cost.

Yes. Example: https://www.techradar.com/deals/the-iphone-13-is-now-free-at...

At least in the US, in July, for a Google pixel 8, through Verizon or AT&T, no. Buying a pixel 8 retail from best-buy or Amazon was $200 cheaper than either carrier, and both wanted to push financing instead of outright purchase. My experience (mostly with Verizon) has been that buying directly from the carrier has been more expensive in the last decade than buying the phone retail.

Because contracts that people sign when they buy a subsidized phone are not really enforceable. Folks will get a "free" phone and stop paying. There is not much that provider can do. The cars are valuable enough and when you stop paying your loan you will lose it pretty fast.

Why not? Because AT&T doesn’t like selling stuff for other telecom companies. In fact the only reason they have stores is to sell wireless services. If you don’t want their service, they don’t want to sell phones to you from their stock.

Something I learned from an AT&T store

If a car manufacturer gave me an offer to only use one particular petrol vendor...I would very much consider it.

I purchased my phone from Apple, and immediately used it on Mint Mobile, which is T-Mobile.

I worked in the prepaid phone industry for 4 years so I have some insight on this. This is bad. The whole purpose of phones being locked for 6(now 12 at Mpcs) mo. is so that we are able to offer very decent phones to poor people who would otherwise not be able to afford the up front cost. Were talking about $200-500 phones being given away for completely FREE to new customers sold at a LOSS and we only HOPE to recover that money if they keep their service more than 6 months, for the $500 off iphones closer to 12. Every new prepaid customer who takes advantage of this-we are taking a massive gamble on wether or not this person will legitimately intend to pay their monthly bill, or if theyre just taking advantage of the initial subsidy and then cancelling service and selling the phones overseas or for parts. The industry consides this fraud. Frontline prepaid retailers already have to do some basic KYC on customers like checking IDs(which isnt a hard requirement) to make sure customers arent abusing the promos, because all it takes is a handful of abusers to cause serious economic harm to a particular stores which aleady operate on thin profit margins. If this change goes through expect prepaid/anonymous phones to go away(KYC and ID checking will kick into overdrive), people in poverty wont be able to get iPhones for $100 upfront anymore, expect hundreds more prepaid phone franchise stores to go out of business and thousands of people to lose their jobs, and for what? What is the benfit of this? So retail arbitragers can buy phones to export overseas at the expense of the American lower class even faster in 2 months rather than 6-12?

This argument has so many holes you could drive a Cybertruck through it.

There are ample used phone markets selling iPhones and top-of-the-line Android devices (e.g. Back Market). No one needs to be on the latest and greatest. I still use an iPhone 13 and I have friends on phones as old as iPhone 11. None of us are part of the "American lower class". Smartphones are a highly mature technology and the improvements being made year on year are now vanishingly incremental, at best.

Further, there is no shortage of financing models available to American consumers. If anything, Buy Now Pay Later might be *too* available as an option.

> people in poverty wont be able to get iPhones for $100 upfront anymore

And that's good - those who are financially constrained shouldn't be getting (enticed) into debt-traps by buying a brand-new high-priced device when really cheaper alternatives are available. Note that the article points out that Verizon already unlocks all their phones after 60 days due to a previous agreement with the FCC. So this has already been "tested" in the marketplace and Verizon hasn't wound up this business model of payment plans. The article also points out the consumer benefit of this FCC policy - once Verizon unlocks its phone, their customers have more freedom to try other services through trial eSims, while customers of AT&T and T-Mobile can't because of their (longer duration) locked phones.

Not for nothing, but those devices are generally sold interest free.

There's no functional difference between "If you're poor, you should save $50/month for the next 2 years, and when you do that, maybe then you can get that $1200 phone", versus "You can pay $50/month for the next 2 years and get that $1200 phone now", other than bias against the "financially constrained".

What happens when the $1200 phone breaks before it's paid off? Does the carrier replace it?

I prefer buying used phones so I don't have any experience with that...except the first phone I bought... I understood from Verizon that the phone was included in the plan. Turns out I owed $300 for a dumbphone at a time in my life where $300 was a lot more than I wanted to pay for a phone.

I replaced it with a used smartphone for $20 a year later.

It's not "bias", but being financially prudent - when you are financially constrained, you don't need a $1200 phone nor do you need to subscribe to a $50/month plan when cheaper options are available. Depending on your budget, you can get a feature phone for around $50 or a smart phone for around $100, and opt for a prepaid plan (the cheapest of which starts from $15/month with limited data).

You can not fill out job applications or participate in the modern economy with a feature phone

Feature phone? What year is this where the only options are a $1200 iPhone or a "feature phone"?

A person can walk into a Best Buy today and buy a carrier-agnostic, factory-unlocked Android phone -- new, in a retail box, with a warranty -- for less than $100. No strings, no contracts, no weird stuff. It's just an item that they have for sale in their store.

(Or, FFS: The last Android phone I bought new was $64.00, including tax and overnight delivery. It came with a 60-day carrier lock, but my carrier is cheap.)

I’m replying to this statement

> Depending on your budget, you can get a feature phone for around $50

I am computing comfortably on my GrapheneOS powered Pixel and Qubes OS powered Thinkpad.

Own AAPL, not Apple.

(on second thought...)

So your argument is that a cell carrier can't be profitable without entrapping poor people into long contracts with debt.

Therefore we must legally protect the rights of businesses to exploit people.

They arent locked into any contract whatsoever at prepaid companies like MetroPCS, Cricket, Tracfone, Boost etc. These companies provide the phones as interest free loans and the businesses incur all the risk.

UK banned carrier locked phones outright [1] and poor people can afford phones just fine.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54692179

You know people can finance just about any purchase right?

People buy cars on finance all the time without needing to buy their cars through BP and signing an exlusive gas purchasing agreement with them. There's no reason for the phone to be tied to the carrier.

Finland the operators sell phones, either fully up front or with even 0% financing. Then contract is entirely separate deal, it might have or not have commitment.

Might miss some "discounts", but it really is entirely workable and reasonable model.

Poor people offen do not have access to credit lines, it's much easier and beneficial to just have cheap products available for those that need them. There's no reason phones should cost $1000 or more anyway, they aren't worth that much.

Yes, but 1000 phones aren't normally in the cards for poor people unless they're financing via carrier or using a tax refund. Before switching into software, I spent most of my mid-late 20s under the poverty line, I never had a high-end phone. But cheap android phones are readily available, here's one [0] for $100 USD that honestly looks like an absolutely fine phone.

IME people who are poor enough to not be able to get a contract with a carrier buy a phone at Walmart and then do prepaid carriers. This has the 'fun' side effect that they get a new number whenever they have to switch phone plans. These switches aren't deliberate, they just run out of money to keep up the old prepaid line, go a week or 3 without a phone, then sign up again. Porting the old number is too much work/time, so they just end up with a new phone number. Its just one of the shitty things about poverty.

[0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/motorola-moto-g-play-2023-32gb-...

So the industry sells the phones "at a loss", but it doesn't lose money on that, because it eventaully makes back the full cost and more, and if it doesn't make back the full cost it considers that "fraud". I don't understand how that's supposed to be doing poor people a favor if they still ultimately pay the full cost of the phone and the service.

Maybe they can offer a midway point. Allow additional eSIMs to be added if your main phone plan is still active. Currently this use case is impossible.

It's not just carriers that enjoy locked phones. Currently, BestBuy (the 2nd largest electronics retailer in America, after Amazon) can only sell unlocked iPhones that are at least a year old. If you want a shiny new iPhone 16 Pro that's unlocked, you have to purchase it from Apple directly.

I don't see this as Best Buy's preferred situation, rather they really need to bring people into stores and this is an agreement with carriers to give them preferential treatment regarding access to their registration systems

"A 2022 decision by the high court requires explicit Congressional permission before agencies can decide on issues that have “vast political and economic significance.”

A combination of a rather-dysfunctional congress, for many years already, and this limitation, means very little ability to regulate on the federal level in the US.

Those are half measures. The obvious solution is to forbid bundling data/cell plans with phones. Those are separate businesses. Bundling can only be bad for competition and customers. That we don't even get this basic protection in EU while things like forcing USB-C are pushed speaks volumes about the state of customer protection.

It 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.

How does the carrier unlock a phone remotely? The process should be reproducible.

And yes it with two slots for eSIM and SIM it makes less sense to have the same carrier inside.

How are the carrier locks implemented today? I assume it must be implemented on the client (phone). Do the carriers work with all the phone manufacturers to have them add this capability?

Yes, manufacturers do this to get them on the shelf at retailers.

Yes.

When a carrier orders lots of phones, the manufacturer would customize the built in software to some extent (how much depends on the manufacturer and the order size)

I think there is an argument for this simply based on the fact that Verizon is currently disadvantaged competitively since they already abide per a previous FCC agreement.

They're not subject to that agreement by accident.

Sure but they are still competitively disadvantaged in the landscape as a result.

Good, they shouldn't do bad shit to people for a buck

And? Actions have consequences.

> “The Commission fails to point to specific statutory authorization for an unlocking mandate and would have profound economic consequences, thus raising a major question that would require clear statutory authority from Congress.”

Surely they're right? Seems like a stretch for them to be claiming the authority to make rules about this.

Why? FCC has every right to regulate communication equipment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone

Does this mean no more discounts? If so that would suck. That's how I buy my phones. Like I only paid $350 for my iPhone 14 Pro because they had $1000 off with a trade-in. And I was able to buy an eligible used trade-in phone from Amazon to get the deal.

In what world does disallowing blatantly anticompetitive behavior constitute a significant economic change?

Ours

yeah this is basically why I've always paid full price upfront for an unlocked phone

This might be well intentioned but it's a bad idea. See https://www.justice.gov/usao-edtx/pr/101-indicted-transnatio... for why but the gist of it is that people use fake IDs to impersonate someone, get phones on credit, and make only the first payment. Then they sell it to a wholesaler who uses a sketchy connection to get the phone unlocked, Fedexes the phone to Hong Kong, and never pays again. Having to bribe rogue carrier employees for unlocks is a big cost center for these thugs.

By automatically unlocking by default you're doing their job for them and making this crime more profitable. And the victims in many cases don't spot the fraud until months later because not everyone is constantly checking their credit report. And it's not some isolated thing either. Literally ONE phone store / wholesaler in Texas bought and exported 100 million dollars worth of stolen phones in a couple of years.

The locking is also part of why new iPhones are even affordable to middle class people in the first place.

> The locking is also part of why new iPhones are even affordable to middle class people in the first place.

Verizon has been forced to unlock after 60 days by an agreement with the FCC for years now and they still offer similar subsidies as the other carriers.

Yeah but they might just be eating higher fraud losses. It used to be pretty much instant unlocking until they asked for a waiver to make it 60 days in 2019 (which was granted by the FCC with not much pushback). So clearly some delay is important. Given their previous agreement they might not have felt they could ask for a longer wait.

Then lock out phones that are in default. This is not what carrier locks do.

The FCC is proposing unlocks for phones that are not completely paid for yet. No one is against unlocking paid for phones. The lock is basically the only recourse the carrier has for nonpayment because blacklisting the IMEI doesn't matter if the phone goes to another country. I don't think you can relock a phone once it's unlocked, and the crooks typically make 1 or 2 payments which would cover the 60 days so by the time the carrier realizes the plan is in default they're not getting their money back.

This is pretty weak. For example:

1. Carrier locks prevent dual-SIM use where one SIM belongs to the locked carrier and the other does not. This is of no value for preventing unpaid phones from being taken overseas but has plenty of value for locking paying users in.

2. Carrier locks require a communication channel from the carrier to the lock database to the phone. With iPhones, for example, the whole mechanism is mediated by Apple. The same mechanism could absolutely prevent activation overseas — instead of having a “locked to carrier X” state and an “unlocked” state, have a “locked and cannot be used for non-emergency purposes” state, an “unlocked until time T” state, and a “fully unlocked” state. And this would even be simpler: it doesn’t require any integration with the baseband processor, so it could be implemented straightforwardly on the AP.

(Note that iPhones already have a locked-to-an-iCloud-account state and can be remotely locked out, which implements 95% of this.)

So, in summary, I do not believe that the current carrier lock scheme is honestly or competently designed as a theft-of-unpaid-phones prevention measure.

100%. Basically allow the phone to be unlocked unless it goes into default, then it gets relocked until out of default.

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