Verizon starts requiring 365 days of paid service before it will unlock phones | Hacker News Reader

Verizon starts requiring 365 days of paid service before it will unlock phones

arstechnica.com

100 pointsvoxadam125 comments

Having lived in a lot of countries over the past couple of decades, I can say this is absolutely something Americans do completely wrong. Just buy your phone at full price. The "free" phones cost significantly more than a full price phone.

My monthly plan payment would not go down if I brought my own phone.

Your particular plan might not but there are BYOD plans that are significantly cheaper than anything you'll get on contract

There are plans available where that is the case. So the solution would be to switch plans or carriers to one that doesn't bundle the phone price in.

You sure about that? Look up Visible, Mint Mobile, Total Wireless, US Mobile, Tello... Same carrier networks, same quality of service. You can even pay a bit extra for prioritized data and other fancy features. You can get basic unlimited plans for $15-30 and premium plans in the $30-50 range vs $100+ at the big carriers. The only difference is that you aren't paying for your "free" phone.

Yeah, I got screwed by both Sprint and Verizon in turn back in the day, so for ages I've just done T Mobile's prepaid plan with an unlocked phone.

Works great, no particular coverage issues, never used enough data to hit any notable throttling.

In this case you’ve switched providers, though. Might be a good idea but doesn’t say anything about whether, e.g., ATT will lower your price if you bring your own phone.

I’ve read that these virtual networks also get lower prioritization so you can get low bandwidth when the higher tier users are active. Not sure how accurate that is.

That’s the whole point of buying your phone unlocked: to allow competition between carriers. Growing up in Europe we had very cheap prepaid plans but you still paid more for out of network than in-network, so lots of budget conscious people had two or more prepaid sims and swapped between them. No monthly bill and you add money to whichever number is low. It helped that receiving calls or sms was free, so you could ring someone and have them call you back if you were a bit low on funds.

Man thinking back, I probably got away with less than 2 dollars a month back in 2006-2010 era.

Broadband Map tracks priority levels for the big three US carriers' plans and the MVNOs they support. I paid $225 promo pricing for one year of Visible+ Pro with unlimited priority Verizon data and all taxes and fees included ($18.75/mo), so I can pay full price for a flagship phone and end up ahead of any carrier phone deal.

https://broadbandmap.com/priority

That’s a useful resource. Thanks.

And if you don’t use a lot of data, at least US Mobile has a by the gig plan. My family has three phones on it for a total $30 per month. Those months that we go over, it automatically charges $2 for each extra GB, with data pooled between the lines.

It is easy to switch between Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile as well. This was helpful for me as all three of the networks normally have one bar or less at my house. T-mobile WiFi calling works more reliably than Verizon.

HN apparently can't fathom that people pay for Verizon because the service is good. I get Verizon free through work and sorry it's noticeably faster than Visible. The discount plans aren't actually the same but cheaper. If you were going to be a Verizon customer anyway then the free phone is actually free. You don't get a discount for BYOD and the service is the same price whether you take the phone or not.

Another label I fell for in the US was "lite" cooking oil. The fine print said "light in colour."

The "free" is just advertising and for people habituated to credit, it's a no-brainer. Pun intended.

What did you expect it to be lite in?

Calories. Yeah, I was naive back in the 90s.

it's a lot easier to pay smaller amounts over time than it is to pay a large lump sum, even if it is technically less after x number of years. Delayed gratification etc, but also sometimes folks need a phone and can't put off the purchase until they save up the upfront price. T

You can buy a no-contract Android phone for like $80

If you take a look at marketshare, Americans are animals that spend well beyond their means in bulk. Apple products or Samsung products dominate the smartphone market and it's the expensive ones.

And the cars! JFC every time I come back to the States I'm amazed/shocked/appalled at these suburban land tanks everywhere. Just buy a normal car!

To be fair I know a nontrivial number of people who bought their iPhones used. I’m sure that happens in the android market, but it doesn’t seem to be as common in the US. I think the fact that iPhones have offered acceptable support for much longer than android has helps a lot there.

but also sometimes folks need a phone and can't put off the purchase until they save up the upfront price.

Whatever happened to planning ahead? No wonder things are the way they are.

Things being the way they are is exactly the reason Americans can't afford to pay for a cell phone upfront. There's no amount of "planning ahead" that will change that when people are living paycheck to paycheck and having to go into debt to afford basic things like groceries.

It's easy to forget this place is populated with upper-middleclass skilled professionals that probably haven't lived economically precariously in years, if ever.

For some folks out there, planning ahead is "will I have enough money for groceries next paycheck?". There are cheap phones, and I agree that folks are careless. But there is also a concerted effort to encourage this kind of behavior because the economy is built on this kind of dumb consumer spending and debt.

You can get usable $150 phones to fulfill a need. Nobody needs a $1000 phone they can't afford.

People often give bs reasons like

- oh. I like night time camera from 1K pixel or iPhone

In Norway several of the mobile phone telecom operators sell phones on down payment plans that cost nothing extra compared to buying it cash up front.

It has been like this for several years and it’s great!

You can pay a pretty low monthly down payment over a period of 36 month.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, I don’t even have to enter into any binding contract for any phone plan to buy the phone this way. And even if I did have to do that the most they are allowed to bind me to is 12 months, by law.

Consumer protection laws in my country are fabulous :)

Yes but you will generally pay more for your monthly plan in those cases vs. buying an unlocked phone at full price and a dirt-cheap SIM like Lebara.

You can still do that as well

In my country you do not. No idea how they do it, but the plan and buying the phone separate (iPhone 16 pro Max) phone costs about 300 more than the phone and plan combined.

That implies you are paying too much for phones then, since the mobile providers can apparently get them significantly cheaper. They may also be selling your data and pre-installing apps, but every country does that.

I think it's a way for Phone OEMs to push their phones into the market as a marketing measure/to gain market shares without destroying their retail price because it never happens to very popular phones like the iPhone

EU. They are not selling my data nor pre installing apps..

A new thing in India is a zero-cost EMI scheme where some intermediary company refunds the cost of the interest over a short period: typically 6 months.

I haven't tried it yet, but a dealer told only to use such a scheme if I didn't plan to use the credit card for anything else during that period.

I can't figure out how they're making money on this scheme.

It was also much easier to import cheap unlocked phones from abroad when the whole world used at most 4 frequency bands. Now there's several dozen and I don't think even the most expensive flagship phones support all of them.

To paraphrase a common phrase I've seen around here: The "G" in "LTE" stands for "global".

There are tools to check the compatibility of the phone with the carrier, some sellers like Tradingshenzen integrate that into their shops. A quick check shows that indeed the US carriers have many incompatible bands with the phones. On the other hand, there is only one or two bands that you have to check when importing to Europe.

I suspect that many Americans would struggle to afford to pay for a phone outright. The vast majority live paycheck to paycheck and are already in record amounts of household debt.

This is often repeated but false - it’s not the vast majority, nor even a majority.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/19/bank-of-america-nearly-half-...

It just depends on who you ask and what they think living paycheck to paycheck means.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/52-americans-live-paycheck-pa...

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/goldman-sachs-study-fin...

https://econofact.org/factbrief/is-there-a-consensus-that-a-...

No matter if it's "Nearly half" or 60%, things are clearly far from good for most Americans.

Americans are, adjusted for inflation, literally richer than Americans have ever been at any point in history right now, at every quintile in the income distribution. If that's "far from good" I'm not even sure what that phrase means.

If the point is just that the hedonic treadmill means Americans will continue to be less and less happy as we get more and more wealthy, well, that's the problem we need to fix.

How is that measured? All the anecdotal evidence I’ve ever seen suggests the number of hours you have to work at realistic (especially entry level) wages to afford rent, basic food, and transit to said job is currently higher than it’s ever been as far as I can tell in my lifetime. Rent alone has risen substantially higher than inflation, which seems like it should especially skew the numbers on the low end.

Rent has risen about the same as wages over the last 40 years. So a bit higher than inflation but not so much that it’s less affordable.

Health care and education are the two that have really outpaced inflation, the trade-off being that basically all durable and consumable goods have run way below inflation.

Inflation is the rate at which prices rise. If things are getting more expensive faster than inflation, you're just undercounting inflation.

Inflation is the rate that a whole basket of goods gets more expensive. At least that’s how CPI is calculated and it’s what I meant by it. Since that number is averaged across a bunch of goods and services, there will always be some that increase faster or slower than inflation as a whole.

Are those figures mean wages? Or median wages?

Because the difference between those is a vast gulf.

Median. BLS barely tracks mean wages at all because it's extremely hard to do.

That’s what I thought and did this for years. However, the major carriers do offer promotions and incentives that make the phones cheaper, sometimes significantly. e.g. of recent deal from major US carriers: iPhone 16 deal for $16/month for 36 months ($576 total) versus Apple store $699.

Right, but what does the plan cost? If it’s more expensive than other providers and you are locked in for 36 months, that’s where they make their money.

Right but they're locking you into a contract plan that's much more expensive than you would get with BYOD. They still get the money.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they rip people off on cheaper phones, but for higher end phones the “free” phones are typically exactly the normal price of the phone split over 24 payments. Every time I buy a new phone I compare buying it directly versus via a carrier and it always comes down to which option currently has a promotion or sale I can take advantage of.

You do realise that they make the money from locking you into their service? In other countries people pay a lot less than the US.

I pay the equivalent of usd 20 for 5 mobile plans, a fibre connection and a landline per month with no throttling on any connection. AFAIK no operator here offers locked phones at all any more.

Huh? My Pixel 9 was free (late 2024) with a 20€/month 2 year contract that includes unlimited calls, SMS, and 5 gigs of 5G data. 480€ when the cheapest full price was over 500 (and then wouldn’t include the data or calls). Certainly not an American thing, and certainly not "significantly more".

Is this an option that's available all the time? Back when the Nexus 5 was still new, I tried doing exactly this and took one I just bought to my local Verizon outlet to have it activated on their network. The tech there told me that while the phone DID have the hardware needed to be compatible on Verizon's network, he was "not allowed" to activate it for me unless I bought it directly through them. I've since switched to T-Mobile and never looked back.

The car salesman will also try to tell you he's not allowed to let you take the vehicle off the lot without rustproofing.

Okay, what I really meant to ask was whether Verizon in particular is still incredibly dishonest about the process of bringing your own device as I had personally experienced. Obviously, the real solution is just to take your business elsewhere.

No, then again I wouldn’t recommend it now since there’s tons of mvno’s to go to that you can order online without dealing with less scrupulous store employees. Best advice I can give if you still want to do verizon/tmo/att direct is AVOID authorized retailers, only use the corporate stores.

Verizon around the Nexus 5 still had a lot of CDMA and you needed to have a phone activated.

Now that networks are pretty much LTE and 5G only, if your phone takes a SIM, take the SIM out of the old phone and put it in the new phone. Some carriers still play games with allowlists for VoLTE though.

But you might have better luck (and better pricing) with a MVNO or the prepaid side of your preferred carrier.

Allowlists for VoLTE are a perfectly reasonable (if extremely unfortunate) safety measure.

Because of the special handling that emergency calls must get in cellular networks, many older phones will use circuit-switched fallback (AKA 3g or 2G) for those calls, even if they are otherwise VoLTE capable.

This was pretty much fine back in the day, as 2g and 3g networks were just as (if not more) widespread as VoLTE, but those networks are now being shut down. If you have one of these phones and an LTE-only carrier allows it onto their network, you will be able to make any normal call, but emergency calls will not work.

To add insult to injury, there's no way for the carrier to tell whether any specific phone does emergency calls over VoLTE or not, especially if they don't have a contract with that vendor. Some phones may only do it in certain configurations, E.G. when branded for that specific carrier and configured with their preferred modem settings.

> The "free" phones cost significantly more than a full price phone

I buy phones at full price, but in general the free/subsidized versions don't cost more. You just pay over time. For many people, it would even be worth it to pay somewhat more if they don't have the money to pay up front.

One downside though is that you're more likely to upgrade to features you don't need because "it's only an extra $5/6/10 per month". Gotta always consider the total cost.

"Verizon was previously required to unlock phones automatically after 60 days due to restrictions imposed on its spectrum licenses and merger conditions that helped Verizon obtain approval of its purchase of TracFone. But an update applied today to the TracFone unlocking policy said new phones will be locked for at least a year and that each customer will have to request an unlock instead of getting it automatically."

merger conditions.

I mean, it was really difficult to get it unlocked after 60 days: you had to know the special password "for travel."

Not true, iPhones were unlocked automatically after this 60 day timeframe. My gf has been using a 14 pro max previously financed from verizon on t-mobile since just outside that timeframe.

Here’s another fucked up policy that’s about a year old from T-Mobile: I very rarely financed phones direct through T-Mobile. My 15 pro max will be the last since I had to fight them for a device unlock prior to paying off in full. I would have paid it off in full if they didn’t change their policy to kill bill credits if you do pay early. I threatened them with costco’s 90 day return policy if they didn’t do it since I run dual sim for coverage, they relented.

I am curious though, had I never had the phone unlocked, I wonder if Apple would have swapped in an unlocked board when they did my board swap for RCS issue?

Maybe that's something Apple made them do? Certainly wasn't the case with Android.

Why is anyone even tolerating a carrier selling them a phone locked for a single day (unless it is free with plan or something in which case there's nothing wrong)?

If you're using an iPhone, buy it from the Apple Store, full stop. No reason not to. If you need financing they have that (ACMI). They also sell older models refurb (like new condition) to save even more.

For a cheap Android (Revvl 60 or whatever), they'll just give you another cheap one next time you switch carriers, right? They are basically e-waste after a year or two and don't get updates.

And basically the only flagship Android widely sold in America is Samsung which is also sold DTC, albeit only online, and sometimes has promos for direct purchase? Maybe not as much financing tho. The other OEMs either don't sell in the US, or have some DTC presence too (ex. OnePlus).

> Why is anyone even tolerating a carrier selling them a phone locked for a single day

When I graduated from college, a large majority of the recent graduates at my first job had new cars.

I still see this trend - young people with the latest iphone and/or new cars, and not worrying about being tied to payments.

I think this will happen... forever.

> Why is anyone even tolerating a carrier selling them a phone locked for a single day (unless it is free with plan or something in which case there's nothing wrong)?

I sometimes buy carrier locked phones when the unlock period is reasonable and the locked phone + the required service is a good deal compared to buying unlocked.

I don't think a 1 year locked period is reasonable though, unless it was locked to the carrier I actually intend to use.

I would find it so deeply enjoyable to see the homes of Verizon management equipped with paddlocks on their bathroom doors, refrigerators, garages, etc.

It would be my pleasure to announce to them that the terms of service dictate that the padlocks would never be removed, but the new subscription fees would be announced shortly.

It would be delicious to see such a delightful revenge sink deep into their lives.

Until such time, enjoy our esteem, you scoundrels!

> AT&T’s policy allows unlocking of phones on postpaid plans after 60 days if the device has been paid in full, or after six months for phones on prepaid plans. T-Mobile’s policy allows unlocking of phones on postpaid plans after 40 days if the device has been paid in full, or after 365 days for phones on prepaid plans.

If the phone is paid in full, what is the justification for not unlocking it?

Playing devils advocate…

In cases of fraud, it creates buffer time for the consumer who’s identity was stolen to notice and notify before the device disappears.

I can see that for credit-card fraud, etc, however I'd wager most such fraud will be detected in days 0-60, and comparatively none of it in days 61-365. (Are there stats?)

So some buffer is legitimate, but not the amount they are trying to impose.

Can a carrier ever surreptitiously lock an unlocked phone, or is it only on phones financed or purchased through the carrier? For example, if I bought an unlocked phone and attached it to my Verizon plan, could Verizon lock it?

Technically possible

Historically phone locking was done at the modem level via an NCK code - if a phone is supplied by a carrier the modem will come pre-locked and will only be unlocked upon entry of an NCK code which the carrier has the secret key to generate (hash(secret+imei)). With this system if the phone is not locked to begin with I am not aware of any way to toggle this mechanism remotely.

With smartphones however, the game has changed. Apple for example no longer locks their modems at all and instead rely on a software-level check as part of the "activation" process (at first boot where it also gets its client certificates/etc to talk to Apple services) - said activation policy can be changed remotely, and Apple are very cagey about their full capabilities. I have read of some vendors selling iPhones that would be unlocked at first but lock themselves to the first carrier they see.

It's unlikely Apple would ever enforce or change an activation policy on a phone purchased directly from them, so you should be safe. But technically, it's up to the phone manufacturer. I am not sure what the Android situation is in comparison.

I am not sure what the Android situation is in comparison.

If you have root, you can easily unlock the modem and keep it unlocked.

Now if only we could force companies to allow root [without disabling features].

If you don't have the key, how? I browsed XDA forums a lot in the past to try and ulock and old phone, and there didn't seem to be any way. All of the guides ended up being nonsense.

Someone above said you need the NCK code which is generated from a secret only the carrier has - how does having root get around this?

how does having root get around this?

The lock is basically implemented as an "is the SIM's carrier on a whitelist" check, which can obviously be patched out or modified arbitrarily once you have full access to the firmware which root does. It's important to remember that the lock is entirely on the phone's side, to prevent it from connecting to any other carrier than the one it's locked to. A carrier can implement an "official" unlocking method essentially as an app that runs on the phone to validate the unlock code, but that is no obstacle to root.

If you jailbreak an iPhone, the lock is also easily removable in the same manner.

Can you recommend any good guides to read more about this? I was trying to unlock a Boost phone a few years ago, which was perfectly good and compact but unusable outside of Boost. I no longer have the need but still have the curiosity.

https://xdaforums.com/t/howto-root-required-remove-network-l...

https://xdaforums.com/t/removing-carrier-lock.3903352/

https://xdaforums.com/t/no-root-needed-carrier-unlock-carrie... (I know what the title says, but this procedure is generic to Mediatek and they are also easily rootable)

Look around that site in general, plenty of Android modding information.

Also see "SIM lock" here:

https://gist.github.com/sadiqsalau/865364b344c0b9cb1b418df8b...

Thanks!

If we're talking NCKs it means the modem is locked, so you need a modem/baseband-level exploit. Root helps you talk to said modem but doesn't directly allow you to modify its firmware without some other exploit.

Not really familiar with other platforms, but on Mediatek platforms the modem firmware is just loaded from the filesystem --- which you have full access to as root.

> I have read of some vendors selling iPhones that would be unlocked at first but lock themselves to the first carrier they see.

Yeah, there's no official documentation, but that's how the Best Buy ones are. I've seen it called "US Reseller Flex" and "SIM Out" policies. There are some shady websites that have a GSX login that will report the policy name, anti theft lock status, and service history if you put in the IMEI. The intent is to prevent having to keep separate stocks of identical hardware pre-assigned to each carrier you sell for.

IIRC, Best Buy isn't supposed to sell you a phone without at least adding it to an existing carrier account. They act as an agent of the carrier, not selling the phone standalone like Apple does. It's possible that someone could then resell it while in-box as a scam, but that's not what Apple/carrier intended.

Interesting coincidence. I just ordered a new Tracfone for 50 bucks. I had assumed the unlock policy was 1 year. The same phone, unlocked, was much more expensive. Strategically, I figured that after being a Tracfone customer for well over a decade, I probably wouldn't get around to switching for yet another year, so I'm OK.

Well, I don't know if people ever look at old threads, but I had an inspiration, and decided to unlock my old phone before switching to the new one. Tracfone made it utterly painless. Now I have an unlocked phone should I ever travel to a faraway place and need to get a local SIM card.

I'm glad I stumbled across this: life circumstances have allowed me go abroad for a trip the past two years. One thing I had forgotten about since the last trip were some of my group being unable to get one of the cheap prepaid data eSIMs because their phone was still locked to the carrier. I've been tempted to replace my aging iPhone SE 2022 (^1) with a trade-in deal and get a new phone, but it never occurred to me that would mean being forced to use AT&T's $10/day (capped at $100 in one billing cycle) "International Day Pass" during future trips until it had been paid off for long enough.

(^1) I wish I wasn't so tempted after ~4 years, but the battery health has dropped to 75% and the performance has suffered dramatically. A new battery is on the table I suppose, but I am split between just putting that money towards a new phone.

>I wish I wasn't so tempted after ~4 years, but the battery health has dropped to 75% and the performance has suffered dramatically.

Won't help with performance, but I've found that keeping bluetooth and location turned off lets me use the phone for the whole day without needing a recharge. Only thing that eats battery is video calls.

Pocket-sized devices with more computing power than we could have dreamed of as children, and society has somehow allowed it to become a completely miserable experience.

I'm part of the problem. But I won't be (as much) after I get a used one and put Graphene OS on it.

Be careful about used Pixels. The Verizon and probably other carrier branded versions do not allow bootloader unlock at all, even after the modem is no longer locked.

Thank you, I appreciate this a lot. That sure is enraging to know though.

I still remember at the beginning of the mobile era, when there were tons of small "repair shops" that would unlock phones for a small fee. They are likely still around.

One of my oldest MSN friends (I think I have him on WhatsApp now) would unlock iPhones and later Androids for ages, his status on MSN was literally "I will unlock your phone" or something like that. Guy was from Belize, cool dude.

Buy your own phone like everyone’s saying, but also use an MVNO instead of setting money on fire paying the major carriers. The better MVNOs even have multiple carriers and allow you to switch at any time.

TracFone / Straight Talk was my MVNO of choice, then Verizon bought them. >sigh<

(I wonder if this unlocking policy will retroactively apply to the locked Striaght Talk phone I bought back in October.)

From a different news story about this change, it doesn't apply to any phone activated before the government issued its approval earlier this month. So any phone which you activated in 2025 is not covered by this.

Same. I switched to US Mobile, which is cheaper than Tracfone, has all three carriers, and thanks to eSIM they allow you to switch carriers any time you want.

Honestly everyone should just use T-Mobile Connect. They make it very hard to find on their site, but it's their true prepaid service, cheapest plan is 5GB of data and unlimited calls/texts, and it won't a lesser priority like MVNOs are.

The fact that people pay over $100/month for a phone bill is truly a uniquely mind-boggling American thing.

> and it won't a lesser priority like MVNOs are.

Depending on the MVNO you can get first-class priority data (my plan has it), but also this stuff has never made a difference in my experience. When I was on 'lower priority' data the differences in speed weren't noticeable if I had service at all, and in the cases where I was at some event where there was a lot of devices contending for access to the tower, nobody was getting service.

Why would you pay for a service with the potential to be worse when the same product is available for the same price without that potential?

Because it's not quite the same price. If you need more than 5 GB, Mint Mobile is quite cheaper than T-Mobile Connect for example.

Thanks FCC for looking out for the little guys!

does the FCC still exist?

Slightly off-topic but if you want to buy Pixels for GrapheneOS or similar: never buy the Verizon version. They do not allow bootloader unlock even after the modem is unlocked.

What irks me about this is that consumers are already financially on the hook in terms of subscription periods and cancellation policies and conditional deals etc. The only legitimate reason to "lock" the phone hardware is to ensure the person doesn't pay with a stolen credit card and vanish... which doesn't take a whole dang year!

The long locking-period is just a way to impose a stealthy and anti-competitive switching-cost onto consumers, denying them the right to use the things they own.

It's also an example of how just because one doesn't care about politics... doesn't mean it won't "care" about you.

> While the Biden-era FCC’s leadership criticized yearlong locking periods and proposed a 60-day unlocking requirement for all carriers, the Trump FCC appears likely to write a new industry-wide standard that would be welcomed by large mobile carriers.

On Slickdeals, the 60 day unlock after paying for one month of service was often used for locked phones like the $49 iPhone SE. This prevents that.

I haven't head of Slickdeals, but wouldn't you still be under the terms of the line contract?

They aren't going to lose their money.

I got a similar deal; the phone was locked to tracfone (or one of the other verizon owned mvnos), no contract, just had to activate it and pay the first month's service. When the month was up, put it in a drawer. 60 days from activation, pull it from the drawer, connect to wifi, and it would unlock.

Legislation is sorely needed to protect consumers against such awful practices.

Just buy your own phone. A midrange Samsung is like 350 eurodollars these days.

Some of devices automatically lock once used on a carrier network

Thats some lawsuit level bullshit.

If you buy them unattached? First time I hear of that, do you have an example or source?

I don’t believe that’s true. Locking is entirely something done by carriers for promotionally-priced phones attached to active phone plans.

Can you point me to anywhere documenting your claim? That would definitely be a new low if true, but I really don’t think that’s how it works.

Sadly it is true. It’s called Flex Lock or US Carrier Flex Policy: https://www.usmobile.com/blog/what-is-flex-lock/

The gist is that it allows a third-party seller to stock a bunch of identical, not-yet-locked phones and offer a choice of carrier plans. The phone binds to whichever carrier the user first activated on.

So if you’re buying a phone, verify it is not one of these units.

No they don't

Not in EU

Why is anyone using Verizon?

Unpopular opinion. SIM locking is actually good.

If a carrier cannot trust you (especially due to bad credit history), they can't sell you the phone you want if you don't pay outright, and many people aren't able to do that. SIM locks are basically "repossessions but for phones." Nobody argues in good faith that banks shouldn't be allowed to evict you if you don't pay your mortgage, and that's effectively what a "no SIM locks" policy does for phones.

To make things even worse, it's far too easy for fraudsters to buy a phone using a stolen identity, never pay a single installment, and instantly sell it on the second-hand market. For SIM-locked phones, the carrier can brick the phone until it is fully paid of, so that kind of fraud is not possible.

Sim locks do enable some abuse, particularly around roaming fees, as you're not allowed to swap your SIM when leaving the country. However, They're a blunt tool unsuited to the 21st century internet-enabled smartphones. One could imagine a mechanism where the carrier is still allowed to brick the phone in case of fraud, but there's no actual SIM lock.

This is why we buy phones directly from Apple. They come unlocked.

I’m switching to T-Mobile.

Go a step further and switch to Mint, T-mobile's pay-as-you-go subsidiary. I'm paying $180/year for a single line. I've been on mint for ~3 years now.

On Mint your traffic is routed with lower priority than T-Mobile's main customers. In practice, I have only experienced this at busy airports and an MLB game - where basically service dropped to near zero. This is in the Boston area. Obviously not ideal if you're in those conditions regularly. Otherwise it's been awesome.

If the service is of interest my referral code is below. It gets you a $15 renewal credit for joining. Will the winds of votes love or hate a referral code? Who knows! apologies if I'm out of bounds. (I don't understand why it's out of bounds)

[0] http://fbuy.me/vks2P

> Go a step further and switch to Mint, T-mobile's pay-as-you-go subsidiary. I'm paying $180/year for a single line. I've been on mint for ~3 years now.

> On Mint your traffic is routed with lower priority than T-Mobile's main customers.

Much better to just use T-Mobile connect. Same pricing without the lower priority. I pay $15/month for my line which works out the same to $180/year.

Oh Murica

Another thing this administration reverted. It never ends.

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