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Verizon Wants to Lock Phones Longer Like AT&T and T-Mobile

russell_314 said:
Wow. I paid an activation fee on my 14 Pro Max, but it was maybe $25. I don’t remember exactly, but I felt it wasn’t worth stressing to argue with them about it. It was annoying enough to feel like I got ripped off, but not annoying enough to cause myself further stress.

Maybe they stopped doing the fee by the time you upgraded or it could be they treat accounts differently? My account was never in default or anything, but I’ve only been with them at the time for a few years.
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No, I always could talk CS down to splitting the activation fee with me so $15? This was the first time they didn"t charge me. This was my first iPhone with esim (which was a mother to set up), spent a bunch of time trying to get it to work with CS. I think it just got by them due to all the problems I had getting it to work.. I know carriers want to get paid so I doubt the fee was waved, just got lucky..
 
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I buy my phones outright and use US Mobile. $45 a month and I have two lines (ATT & Verizon) unlimited everything. Paying for a postpaid plan on a main carrier is a noob move and financing your phone with a carrier is ultra noob.
 
lkrupp said:
Then you buy an unlocked phone to begin with and pay more for it. Getting a “free” phone is all about locking the user into a contract that allows the carrier to recover the cost of the phone they gave you. So buy the unlocked phone outright and then select a non-contract option from the carrier of your choice.

As has been pointed out carriers lose millions of dollars from customers playing games with carrier promotions.
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If they were losing more money than they made, the deals would have stopped by now….
 
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ZipZilla said:
The solution here is for everybody to buy unlocked phones and stop financing phones through carriers. then it's a moot point.

They have a point about the fraud, I used to work in the business and all of the carriers get hit hard from fraud rings stealing phones
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The whole point of the locked phones is the fact that the carriers make their money on the service not the hardware. So giving you a good deal or a free phone is what gets you in their door so they have to make you stay there for some period of time to at least pay for the hardware and other costs. How could they gave you a free or heavily discounted phone then allow you to go to their competitors whenever you wanted? Why would they? They are not in the selling phones business, they are in the selling phone service business. Apple is in the phone selling business so they will sell you an unlocked device but not give you a free one because that's what their business is. They make no money after your hardware purchase. So yeah if your big concern is an unlocked device, then do as you stated in your first sentence and stop the carrier financing and buy direct. (and by "you" and "your" I don't mean you specifically, but the ones here upset about this)
 
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fzJNotIBOxgnbqejSeVCvJScL said:
Let’s be honest: No legitimate customer has a problem with phones being locked to the carrier given unlocking is a consumer right nowadays. The dishonest people crying and screaming are buying phones form one carrier to take advantage of some amazing deal or using it as free distribution (instead of buying it from a store that will sell to them unlocked) and hence finding it difficult to unlock. No one is stopping these undesirables (because carriers make money from service, not phone sales) from going to the manufacturer and paying their MSRP that rarely goes down. But of course these are cheap, lazy, and dishonest people trying to cheat their way into a discount, what exactly did they expect?
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Blaming the consumer for following the rules and playing the games carriers like Verizon come up with. :rolleyes:


MacRumors said:
Verizon suggests that consumers will benefit from the waiver because it will allow the company to better compete with other carriers by "offering subsidies and other mechanisms to make phones more affordable, lower upfront costs, and enable customers to obtain the latest and most innovative devices."
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In exchange for all that, Verizon will require the customer to buy one of their most expensive Unlimited plans.
 
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People have short memories. Verizon and the now-defunct Sprint were the OG max phone lock carriers in the old days. Not only they chose the incompatible standard (CDMA), they wouldn't even activate another compatible CDMA phone not sold by them.

Verizon even disables Bluetooth file transfers to force users to buy ringtones off their store
 
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BugeyeSTI said:
No, I always could talk CS down to splitting the activation fee with me so $15? This was the first time they didn"t charge me. This was my first iPhone with esim (which was a mother to set up), spent a bunch of time trying to get it to work with CS. I think it just got by them due to all the problems I had getting it to work.. I know carriers want to get paid so I doubt the fee was waved, just got lucky..
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Same here with the eSIM set up. I think I ended up looking up something online and trying to help the tech out. They were completely clueless. If I get the 17, I’ll probably hassle them to cut down the activation fee. I get it they want to make money, but they’re already making quite a bit.
 
Reason077 said:
I remember the bad old days of phone locking in the UK. But it's been completely banned since 2021. Previously there had been a rule that required carriers to unlock phones when requested, but that was still annoying for customers.

Sorry to hear that you're still dealing with this, Americans!
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I was going to say, carrier locking hasn't been a thing here in australia for a long time.

The only time it still exists if when buying a pre-paid carrier subsidized phone.

But for contracted post-paid plans, there's no locking; you leave anytime you just have to pay out any residual finance on the phone if you do.
 
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lol. Verizon spinning it as helping consumers.

Whatever they want, they will get. This is the new “Golden Age”, after all. 😂

It’s a good time to be a wealthy individual or corporation right now!
 
Locking phones means no dual-SIM on financed phones. Dealbreaker for me as I use my phone with a both a postpaid T-mobile line for personal use and a prepaid T-mobile line for business use.
 
If I were the FCC in this situation, I’d consider allowing a waiver with the stipulation that Verizon must offer free, unlimited international data, voice and sms for the duration that the phone is locked (in this case, 6 months) after which case the international plan could revert to the plan’s included features. While the phone is locked, customers are unable to use 3rd party SIMs which means that they can’t get a local SIM where they’re traveling to get more data or to save money.
 
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Mobile phones plans in the US are a joke. I live in Italy and I pay €9.99 per month. I have unlimited calls and text messages. I can make unlimited calls to the USA. I get 200gb per month of data in Italy and 7gb outside of Italy. This is more than enough data. I am a remote worker and have worked many days over the course of a month using my phone as a hotspot and don’t even come close to my data limit. Unlimited data plans are not necessary. Paying full price for a phone and having a cheap plan vs a cheaper phone and a higher monthly recurring bill works out in my favor.
 
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colfourbin said:
Mobile phones plans in the US are a joke. I live in Italy and I pay €9.99 per month. I have unlimited calls and text messages. I can make unlimited calls to the USA. I get 200gb per month of data in Italy and 7gb outside of Italy. This is more than enough data. I am a remote worker and have worked many days over the course of a month using my phone as a hotspot and don’t even come close to my data limit. Unlimited data plans are not necessary. Paying full price for a phone and having a cheap plan vs a cheaper phone and a higher monthly recurring bill works out in my favor.
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As an American… if our networks only needed to provide service/200GB for a geographic area from Dallas Texas to Brownsville Texas, and 7GB for the states of Texas/Oklahoma and Louisiana , I’m sure my bill would also be $10/month.
 
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Mity said:
The US need a law that prevents locking phones.
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I like my carrier (T-Mobile) subsidies and they go away if carriers can’t lock the phone. I pay $25 per month, per line including taxes and fees. It amazes me that they keep subsidizing our phones. T-Mobile has probably subsidized our phones by as much as we have paid them for service.
You can make all the rules you want, but in the end, we consumers pay for them. I’m a landlord, and it’s the same in my business. The government makes things more expensive and difficult for me. I eventually net the same, but the tenants pay more.
 
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