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

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

They cant even properly track a stolen phone. How the hell are they going to track unlocked ones?

Btw: I think it's illegal to unlock mobile phones in Portugal, but most shops do it, they just label it as an software upgrade.
 
If anything, the gov't should mandate carriers and/or phone makers to unlock to phone after 90 day period.
 
If you cant afford to buy unsubsidized, just buy a Verizon iPhone 5 and you get the best of all worlds: unlocked out of the box, Verizon LTE, and you can put in a prepaid AT&T SIM to get AT&T's HSPA+ anywhere Verizon doesn't currently have LTE.
 
Here is how it should work. The customers have 2 choices.
1. buy the phone full price, unlocked and have no problem.

2. buy the phone with a discount but have to sign a contract (2 or 3 years depending on where he lives)

2 a) Wait untils the contract is up, then the customer owns the phone and can do whatever he wants with it

2 b) Break the contract before it ends but the customers has to pay for the remaining fee to own the phone, then he owns the phone and can do whatever he wants with it.

The moral is that if the customer owns his phone and paid the full price, he should not be locked with only one carrier.
 
I think this quote from Ayn Rand is appropriate.

"There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."



Come get me feds! :rolleyes:
 
Hold up, THIS could be a GOOD thing!

This means you can pay your contract, have your phone unlocked by the carrier. The only thing this prevents is someone stealing/finding your phone, wiping it, unlocking it, and selling it on eBay/CL. This allows carriers to track/create lists of authorized iPhone's. When one is found that is not authorized, that buyer, seller, user can serve time - or turn over the one who sold it to them until they locate the one who unlocked it - ie. like gun laws. If you sell a gun to someone who uses it in a crime, you are just as guilty if you failed to do a background check. Buyer has to verify it is legitimately unlocked (not a stolen device).

This may sound like a bad thing, but it might be a VERY good thing in the end.
 
Bheleu said:
This means you can pay your contract, have your phone unlocked by the carrier. The only thing this prevents is someone stealing/finding your phone, wiping it, unlocking it, and selling it on eBay/CL. This allows carriers to track/create lists of authorized iPhone's. When one is found that is not authorized, that buyer, seller, user can serve time.

This may sound like a bad thing, but it might be a VERY good thing in the end.
Click to expand...

Good luck getting Sprint and Verizon to unlock the iPhone for use on CDMA and GSM/LTE on other carriers in the US.
 
It must have taken massive lobbying to carriers to have accomplished this.

I should be allowed to unlock my phone to use it with another carrier if my carrier decides not to unlock my phone for no good reason, or if I want to travel overseas and avoid having to pay massive roaming rates. As long as I keep my plan, who cares if I unlock my phone?

----------
blackburn said:
They cant even properly track a stolen phone. How the hell are they going to track unlocked ones?

Btw: I think it's illegal to unlock mobile phones in Portugal, but most shops do it, they just label it as an software upgrade.
Click to expand...

The police could track it, if you were Steve Jobs and your phone got stolen. For regular people, they just won't do it.
 
Morrile said:
I thought Apple was more interesting in selling their products and not what people do with them.

Once I have paid my money I will do whatever I like with the product, if I break it that's my problem.
Click to expand...

Apple's got nothing to do with this - It affects ALL locked cellphones in the United States, iPhone or not, and is backed by the carriers. Of course Apple would rather this law didn't pass, because if people are able to do whatever they want with their iPhone, they're more likely to buy one.
 
There are going to be road blocks setup through out the states to check people's phones. This is the officer in charge :)

main-qimg-3c33227f1bc1945995e8eb0291dac8e4
 
Oh, so now I have to sneak around to use my purchased device as I see fit. Brilliant.

How about regulating the telcos instead, so they're actually competitive and people won't need to unlock?
 
At first I thought it was any phone. Now I read it's only CONTRACT phones. I'm actually OK with this.

I can still unlock phones which are not in a contract or bought full price. Which is what AT&T does either way. :rolleyes: But will eBay still offer unlocks? How would they know if it's a contract or out of contract? :confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back