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Unauthorized Unlocking of New Mobile Phones Set to Become Illegal in U.S.

Not like it matters in the US anyways. You can't take a Verizon phone and put it on Sprint. T-mobile will soon carry the iPhone. You terminate an AT&T account, the phone is immediately unlockable.

It is a bad precedent though.
 
F123D said:
So if I unlock my phone and use it on another carrier, who's going to enforce this new law?
Click to expand...

The carrier that you'll move to will report you...... easy.

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I'm thinking.. if this law is in effect...tomorrow....i guess apple is SELLING ILLEGAL PRODUCTS.:rolleyes:
 
Some Politician is lining their pocket!!!

It is disgusting with all the wrong doing in our country and this is the **** they pass legislation on. Some politician(s) got paid. Ridiculous. Are carriers really hurting that bad? No! This is because the big carriers ie. Verizon and AT&T got together, paid someone in congress to make this illegal so they can keep T-Mobile and other small carriers out of the game and not-relavant. What a Joke our government is!!!! They do it right in front of our face and we keep electing the same dick heads in office.
 
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear unlocked iPhones shall not be infringed.
 
Bigsargewaymo7 said:
It is disgusting with all the wrong doing in our country and this is the **** they pass legislation on. Some politician(s) got paid. Ridiculous. Are carriers really hurting that bad? No! This is because the big carriers ie. Verizon and AT&T got together, paid someone in congress to make this illegal so they can keep T-Mobile and other small carriers out of the game and not-relavant. What a Joke our government is!!!! They do it right in front of our face and we keep electing the same dick heads in office.
Click to expand...
I'm not discounting the government just like that though. Thanks to the provision in the usage of LTE that Verizon got, we have unlocked Verizon iPhone 5 out of the box. The problem here is the DMCA, that continually being abused. You do have a point that we keep voting for the same d0uchebags in office.
 
iGrip said:
(a) In General. — Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain —

(1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and

(2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that's only if you set up a business where you unlock customer's phones for money. If you unlock your own cellphone so that you can use it on another network, that's not really for 'commercial advantage' or 'private financial gain', is it...?

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malachiman said:
Here in New Zealand it illegal to sell them locked at all. The one thing we have going for us with Apple products over the USA woohoo :D
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When I was growing up I was told that NZ had one of the most rip-off cellphone networks in the world. Seems that the tables have turned now, and the very opposite is true :)
 
crisss1205 said:
This summer I will be traveling to Europe. While I am there I can get a Prepaid SIM with 600 MB of data for about $12 USD for my unlocked iPhone 5.
Now, if I had a locked AT&T iPhone and wanted to use it there, I would have to pay AT&T roaming fees for voice/text and $120 for 800MB of data.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, the $120 doesn't go to AT&T. They just forward it on to whatever telco you were roaming on. The amount of money isn't set by AT&T, it's set by the third part telco.
 
senseless said:
I'm a little unclear on this. Does this new law mean you can NEVER have your phone unlocked, even out of contract?
Click to expand...
It depends on the carriers, since it will be their call to unlock your phone "officially."

Here's the problem. The idea of unlocking and all the carriers starting to put some sort of unlocking policy is probably partly due to the "unofficial" unlocking that customers do. Now with this in place, the carriers can simply revert back and refuse unlocking, since, well, if you want to do it unofficially, it will be illegal.
 
mrsir2009 said:
When I was growing up I was told that NZ had one of the most rip-off cellphone networks in the world. Seems that the tables have turned now, and the very opposite is true :)
Click to expand...

Well we are getting there... When Vodafone came on board they just buddied up with Telecom to keep prices high, only since 2 Degrees came onboard and the others lost market share have they even considered being nice to us Kiwis.

Data is still horrible.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
Just because you purchase a device, that does not mean you "own" the intellectual property therein. And as such, can use said device in any form or fashion.
Click to expand...

So if I purchase a house, the architect who designed the house could prevent me from hanging a picture on the wall. Or if I buy a car, the automaker could prevent me from using other than the listed recommended octane based on your analogy. By the way, the mobile providers do not "own" the intellectual rights to the phone.
 
koban4max said:
The carrier that you'll move to will report you...... easy.

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I'm thinking.. if this law is in effect...tomorrow....i guess apple is SELLING ILLEGAL PRODUCTS.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Umm...not quite. Any carrier that wants to stay in business won't report it's customers.
 
Spending limit...

Basically if you have iPhone 4s or iPhone 5 with Sprint, and you have a spending limit, you have to wait 18 months before they will allow you to unlock your phone. And that includes 12 months of paying the bill on time. So Sprint users don't even bother calling and unlock it after the three months if you're honest and done and done. Time to go to the local Mom & Pop Shop to unlock this iPhone before I travel next month!
 
alexander25 said:
phones shouldn't be locked in the first place.

there's a lot of things that are backwards in this world.

locking phones is one of them.
Click to expand...

they are locked because they are subsidized. You want an unlocked phone, then buy one outright (like the rest of the world). There's nothing backwards about it.
 
Originally Posted by PowerPCMacMan
The USA under the current Communist regime has no right to take our freedoms away.. Who cares if one wants to unlock their own phone for use on another carrier. I say its time for the people to stand up and revolt against this new law.. We need to mobilize massive protests against this decision by our government.

Let's not use our cellphones until they take back that law! That'll teach 'em!
 
Just drive services overseas

There is a popular unlocking and "service-transferring" program for CDMA phones called CDMA Workshop. it is illegal in the U.S., but that has not stopped it from being sold. Similar services for GSM phones will simply be transferred overseas. With the internet, that means simply paying for a service that is performed over the net, or for information to do it yourself.
 
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