Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Jambalaya

macrumors 6502a
Jun 21, 2013
714
151
UK
If the phone companies are obliged to unlock your phone, you'll have to pay much more for it upfront. This is what has happened in France where a phone company must unlock your phone after 3 months if you request it
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
If I could ask an on-topic practical question.

I have an AT&T iPhone 4 that I am thinking of upgrading to a 5c. Should I ask AT&T to unlock the 4, and then sell it privately?
 

bradl

macrumors 603
Jun 16, 2008
5,916
17,395
Hey that's wonderful. What does your rant have to do with selling unlocked telephones?

Context is everything, and apparently you didn't get that since you only read my post and missed the quote that I was responding to.

And also you missed my 4 other posts in this thread showing how this problem has existed since the mid to late 1990s when phones in the US were locked to carriers back then, while they were completely unlocked in the UK, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and various other places.

On top of that, the post that indicated that we are at least 15 years behind on this issue.

So if you are going to jump on my single rant that said to take the political issue to PRSI, you should read the thread more and understand where I am coming from, and what else has been posted. I suggest starting from page 1.

BL.
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
ATT will unlock it free of charge. I see no reason not to unlock it prior to selling

So they will unlock it on request? (I assume the contract period has to be up, which it is.)

I might give the 4 to my wife, if she wants it. We are on a family plan. I wonder, would they unlock the phone if it remains on the same plan?

Thanks.
 

Colpeas

macrumors 6502
Sep 30, 2011
479
119
Prague, Czech Rep.
If this happens then goodbye subsidization.

Yeah, but your monthly payment will be lower. I don't know if you realize this, but subsidies don't save you money, the carrier is not giving you the phone for free. Your monthly bill is basically for wireless service + installment for the phone. Like a phone mortgage. But the carrier doesn't tell you that if you didn't have to pay for the phone, your monthly bill would be accordingly lower

Here, in czech republic, we don't have subsidies as you know them, see the link below to see how it works. Yes, more or less, It is basically the same system you have in the US, but here you can choose how much will you pay for the phone now and what part of the price you'd like to pay as a part of your monthly bill. In the end you will always pay the same price as if you bought it straight away. You do too. If you don't buy a phone from the carrier, you will only pay for the service. It's actually a good thing.

And for the record: Locking phones to one carrier is illegal here since... meh, they banned it so long ago that I don't even remember...

See this (it's in english): http://www.o2.cz/osobni/en/mobile-phones/apple-iphone-5-32gb.html

I guess that sooner or later, this business model will be adopted also by US carriers. It will allow for lower monthly payments if you don't want a new phone every two years or if you don't mind paying the full price for the phone immediately for the sake of cheaper calling.
 
Last edited:

sirozha

macrumors 68000
Jan 4, 2008
1,927
2,327
When all phones are required to be unlocked on demand, you can kiss the $99 or $199 iPhone goodbye. They'll START at $499 or $549, to reflect the true retail value of the phones. It's locking that makes subsidized prices possible.

Unlocking your phone doesn't release you from the contract. You are still obligated to fulfill the contract, whose monthly fee includes the margin covering the cost of the iPhone and then some.

Verizon already unlocks their iPhones on the GSM bands so you are free to pop in AT&T or other GSM SIM card and use their network instead of Verizon's. You are still gonna be charged you monthly Verizon service fee that covers the cost of the iPhone. The only time you would be saving money is when traveling overseas by using a local SIM instead of roaming.
 

tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93
When all phones are required to be unlocked on demand, you can kiss the $99 or $199 iPhone goodbye. They'll START at $499 or $549, to reflect the true retail value of the phones. It's locking that makes subsidized prices possible.

Not at all. The practice doesn't have to change at all with unlocked phones, because there will still be an early termination fee associated with breaking your contract early. The *contract* is how they make up the subsidy, and the *contract* doesn't have to change just because the phone is now unlocked.
 

tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93
I would not enjoy that, but other people don't exist to make me happy. If Paramount owns the movie theater, they can show whatever they like. If I don't like it, I can start my own theater, watch movies online (I realize this wasn't possible in the past, but the Internet does help free markets tremendously), organize a boycott of Paramount, or try to get another theater started some way.

It was proven that those things didn't work. (Or do you think no one thought to try them?) So you can't say "I would..." as if you're the only smart person in the world that those things could possibly have occurred to.

That was the situation that actually happened, this is not a hypothetical you can will away by some kind of magic. It's a true story.

The only choices were government intervention or letting the corporation control your choices by way of localized monopolies.

You have to pick one of those things. There's no magical middle ground where you get to pretend you get everything you want. The real world doesn't work that way.

Small White Car is correct. Most notably because to 'start your own theater', you'd have to get *movies*. Otherwise, you've got a big expensive building, and nothing to do with it. When the studios own and control the means of *showing* movies, independent folks can't get them. So, in addition to starting your own theater, you'd have to start your own movie studio as well.

Modern distribution channels exist *because* of the fact that the government broke up the movie studios' theater monopolies. If those monopolies had never been broken up, you wouldn't be able to go down to the store and pick up a standard VHS tape, or DVD, or Blu-Ray take it home, pop it into a player, and watch the movie. Home video rental, if it were even *possible*, would involve going to different stores to rent movies from different studios, probably on different formats.

----------

1 - I get all of my news from CNN, not Fox.
2 - Obama has had five years to fix the economy. According to you, bush broke it in four months - surely having 20 times that length of time is enough to reverse that damage? You can't just say Obama was handed a crap hand - he's had more than enough time to turn his entire hand over several times.

With the right equipment, you can tear down a house in under 20 minutes. Can you clear the rubble and rebuild it in less than a day?

Screwing something up is easy. Fixing it is almost always harder.

Oh, and the damage that led to the economic collapse took *years* to set up, and will probably take still more years to completely undo.
 

tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93
I'm not sure his logic is all that terrible. If someone tells me Bush ****ed things up in 4 months then you're saying it is absolutely unreasonable to believe that there hasn't been time for some change in 5 years?

Despite what you've apparently heard, the economy *has* been improving (albeit more slowly that most of us would like) since Obama took office. Corporations are, as a whole, more profitable now than they were when Bush took office. What's keeping things slow is that those corporations, as a whole, aren't hiring people back, they're simply making their existing employees do the workload that used to be allocated to 2-3 times as many employees.

Of course, regardless of who was in office, and when, the *vast* majority of blame for the economic damage and slow recovery is properly seated on the folks who actually make and pass the laws which allowed the damaging scenario in the first place, and has prevented change to those laws which might aid recovery. That's Congress, not the President.

Bush didn't crash the economy on his own, he had the help of Congress.
Obama can't repair the economy on his own, he needs the help of Congress, and one sizable branch thereof went *on the record* as doing anything possible to prevent Obama from getting anything done. That's the same branch which blocked 'jobs bills' from reaching the floor of the House, and then complained that Obama hasn't done anything to encourage job growth.

:sigh:

The President is, for the most part, a figurehead in American politics. He has very little power day-to-day, but he gets most of the blame assigned to him, and only some of the credit. Doesn't matter which administration, or which party, it's just how things actually work.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.