On Jan 29, 12:40*am, wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:27:07 -0600, Doug
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Jan 2013 22:40:02 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

As of Saturday, it became illegal to unlock your cell phone. That means,
even if you own it outright, you can't alter the device to make it to
work on another carrier without risking a fine.
TDD

My wife told me about this the other day and I thought it was crazy
for it to apply to an individual. * I'm not a phone guy but I wonder
how they find out if the phone is unlocked or not? *I've seen ways to
do it for my phone but just didn't seem worth it to me.

This is mostly aimed at literally crushing the used phone market.
They want you to use your phone until the contract is out and trade it
in on a newer phone with a new contract.
Then they crush the old phone.
If you could sell an unlocked phone (or one that could be unlocked) ,
you would not trade it in and they would lose the sale of yet another
new phone..

I've had ATT and Verizon. Neither required or even offered
to take my old phone. And they are not making money on
the cell phones either. On most of the plans, you can get
a nice phone for free or $50 with a two year contract. And
they offer similar discounts off high-end phones. They make their
real money on the monthly service.