On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:21:17 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:05:34 -0500, Alex Bell wrote:

wrote:

As of Saturday, it became illegal to unlock your cell phone.

I believe that it was the library of congress, not the whitehouse or the
president or the USPTO, that came down with that ruling.

Because circumventing the software inside your phone that locks it to a
specific carrier falls under copyright legislation, and the library of
congress can apparently make some broad rulings about when copyright
rules apply - and when they don't.

Librarian of Congress serves at the pleasure of the president.


Go ahead and picket the White House then.


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.

New phones cost the service providers money - because they have to
subsidize the cost (to the tune of hundreds of dollars, some times up to
$650 for iPhone). I'm sure they'd rather not have to do that.

If they did not want to do it, they wouldn't. Phone companies get
these phones much cheaper than retail and they use them to sell
contracts, something they want to do.


They do it for the same reason new car dealers offer financing.
So the cost is spread over time. Many of their customers
couldn't afford or bite on a big up front hit.
It's all in the contract. You can't sell a financed car without
paying off the loan first. Might seem a stretch, but some of these
new smart phones cost 7-9 bills retail, and get a 4 bill subsidy from
the cell carrier.
AFAIK if you fulfill the agreed contract the carrier will unlock a
locked phone. The finance company gives you the car title when you
pay off that contract.
You can pay the price on an unlocked phone, and you can pay for a car
without financing too.


Then they crush the old phone.

No, there are lots of used (refurbished) phones that get used in
secondary markets.

Still being controlled by the telcos and you can bet after this rule,
there will be less of them.


Not really. The big market for used phones is Europe/Asia.
Unless they begin hardware locking GSM phones - which is doubtful -
Europe/Asia won't pay attention to US law.



Interesting that Apple sells their iPhones unlocked here in Canada.

When you've been paying $60 a month on a 2-year contract and were given
a new iPhone when the contract started, of that $60, $20 went to pay for
the phone. After 2 years, you own the phone, and should be able to use
it on any network. But because it's locked to the original carrier,
they expect you'll come back to them after the contract is over and keep
using your 2-year-old phone on their network.

The Telcos here aggressively sell new phones with more features that
eat more minutes.

Sure, and car dealers still sell gas-guzzing cars with bells and
whistles. You can buy them, or not buy them.
Personally, I drive a real cheap Chevy, and our two T-Mobile cell
phones cost us a total of about 75 bucks a year.
Don't even know if they're locked. They were virtually free with the
initial 100 buck Gold prepaid plan.
And I see better unlocked phones at Sears, Walmart, etc., for $50-60.
This ruling appears to address scamming on high-end subsidized phone
prices.
Don't know exactly how that works, but I've seen comments by high-end
phone users (Iphones, etc) on how they profited selling their
subsidized phone after unlocking it.