Just more bullying tactics to make you think its harder to switch. They have all moved to 36 month agreements to get credits for ‘free’ device. They want to keep you upside down on the device as long as possible to were the thought of being billed the remaining balance keeps people from switching.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Verizon Wants to Lock Phones Longer Like AT&T and T-Mobile
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Is pretty much a lock that Verizon will get their wish from this anti-consumer FCC. Is actually cheaper to buy unlock phones and not be chained to the carrier.
Verizon used to the be best, but something happened over time. Imo, they all became sloppy and lazy. Dont see the value of what vzw offers today.
I buy my unlocked phones directly from Apple.
No, Apple rebates the fee VZW charges if you activate a phone in store; my guess is the $30 is paid to the store and Apple just rebates it.
You aren't, the phone is sill $829 (which btw is vzw's online price as well), Apple is giving what I'm guessing they get from the carrier for the customer they activated.
Money. My guess I sthe fee is paid to stores, such as Best Buy or franchised VZW stores, for doing the activation. Apple choeses to give that back to you in the form of a rebate.
But activation fees are a bit of a scam to push you to using the carrier's website or phone line to activate and get the upsell chance; Apple just chooses to give the money back to the customer because they want to control the whole customer experience and make sure the customer has a working phone when they leave.
Last edited:
Ok, now apply that logic to Verizon agreeing to *their* contract to offer unlock early in exchange for more spectrum and merger/purchase approvals, or is it only consumers you feel should stay on agreed to contracts?
It’s another example of the paraphrased onion headline: “No Way to Do This,' Says Only Developed Nation Where This Isnt a Thing”
No, and I posted earlier I think VZW should be held to the terms of their agreement as well and not lt off the hook. You ign a contract or agreement, both sides needs to honor it. If one side wants to change it, then it needs to be negotiated as well to something both sides agree on.
In VZW's case, they got spectrum in exchange for certain conditions. Want to change those ocnditions? Give up spectrum. You don't get to say I want to be let out of this but keep everything you gave me.
Not everyone has $1200 cash, or wants to hand it over directly to Apple/elsewhere.
Carrier-based financing is more common than you're probably aware.
Well, if you want a free phone, it's going to be locked. Same with free financing. If you want an unlocked phone, just buy it. It's not that bloody difficult.
To be fair, eSIM is more convenient and faster to enable, especially once you have set everything up with a global provider. You may pay a few % more, but this is negligible compared to the total costs of traveling and the convenience benefits. A tray for physical SIMs is no longer a necessity.
I see that now. But apparently it’s not Apple charging $30 more for the unlocked iPhone, but that carrier give Apple $30 to discount the most basic iPhone if is tied to them. $30 is really nothing, it’s just the actual cost of the iPhone without the carrier paid discount. Apple advertises the basic iPhone as starting at the lower cost using an * to indicate it includes that carrier discount.
Yes, let’s focus on locking people to their network instead of actually making a network people want to use. In the Reno area AT&T and Verizon are abysmal. They’re backbones are for 3G. They’re 5G pull like anywhere from 1mbps to maybe 15 MBps down. Upload .5 maybe 10 and they want to sell us that as 5G!? Who do these companies think they are? They should be forced to advertise on their backbone and not on their frequency. It’s absolutely ridiculous what they’re doing in Northern Nevada. So I disagree. I don’t think they should not be allowed to lock anybody to any network for any contract cuz of how lousy of a network product they provide.
You know who owns the spectrum (capacity, speed) in Northern Nevada?
The US government.
The telcos bid and lease spectrum (from the government), when it becomes available, and deploy capacity to offer to customers in the 210 DMAs in the USA.
Sometimes the telcos can get good spectrum in certain DMAs, sometimes they cannot. Many times, there are factors (financial, technical, regulatory) that are out of their control.
I promise you, the telcos want your money. And they know that your neighborhood might be underserved from a coverage standpoint. If it's an easy fix, they're already working on it.
In EU Iphones are unlocked, and you can swap carriers as you want.
This creates competition on the market, and you can find really cheap mobile plans.
I for example, pay 15EUR each month in Sweden for 5G, free calls/Text and 25gb of data and a "data pot" that increases up to 100gb if I don't use my 25gb each month. This plan works in the entire EU for me with GREAT coverage.
There is no reason to lock in the phone to a carrier, just because you buy a phone with a carrier plan!
Ofc you have to pay that plan untill its end, and pay off the phone for the duration of the plan you sign.
But the fact that you can find such cheap plans, also makes buying phones with a plan much cheaper.
Competition is good! The only reason to lock you up like this is to eliminate competition!
how do
You have the same option in the US, you just won't get a subsidized iPhone.
So does being able to lock and subsidize - users get to chose what is best for them.
In the US, you can get unlimited talk/text/data for 25-30$ month; there are more plans than just the major's premium ones, that have great coverage because they all use the same networks. If you want to pay for a year, they can be as low as 15-20$.
Can you move from Sweden to Germany permanently and still use your phone and not get caught up in fair use provisions becasue you have moved and now are using your phone primarily outside of the original service area? In the US, carriers treat, except possibly some low costs ones, the entire US as one big market, none of this roaming/fair-use junk; so people can keep a number no matter where they move or work without hitting caps.
You have the option to pay off the phone whenever you want to unlock on the major carriers. Locking the phone ensures you stay with them while they are paying you a subsidy.
Considering carriers will pay off switching costs if you switch tells me they compete in subsidized and non-subsidized markets pretty heavily.
People act like locking in was the only option, you have the choice to BYOP and have an unlocked phone. It's really simple, if you don't want to be locked in don't get the 'free' phone.
You have the same option in the US, you just won't get a subsidized iPhone.
So does being able to lock and subsidize - users get to chose what is best for them.
In the US, you can get unlimited talk/text/data for 25-30$ month; there are more plans than just the major's premium ones, that have great coverage because they all use the same networks. If you want to pay for a year, they can be as low as 15-20$.
Can you move from Sweden to Germany permanently and still use your phone and not get caught up in fair use provisions becasue you have moved and now are using your phone primarily outside of the original service area? In the US, carriers treat, except possibly some low costs ones, the entire US as one big market, none of this roaming/fair-use junk; so people can keep a number no matter where they move or work without hitting caps.
You have the option to pay off the phone whenever you want to unlock on the major carriers. Locking the phone ensures you stay with them while they are paying you a subsidy.
Considering carriers will pay off switching costs if you switch tells me they compete in subsidized and non-subsidized markets pretty heavily.
People act like locking in was the only option, you have the choice to BYOP and have an unlocked phone. It's really simple, if you don't want to be locked in don't get the 'free' phone.
4: If your phone is locked to their service, you cannot use it when they try to skip to another carrier while IGNORING debt collectors such as yourself.
That's right, the sim-lock doesn't prevent the next person from using the phone with a Verizon sim-card. Which is brilliant for the provider of course, because means that if the phone remains unpaid and locked even after the contract expiry, they won't unlock the phone and will have another person who bought the phone from the debtor locked to their network become a Verizon customer. In reality, it's all about competition, it has nothing to do with some liability nonsense the other poster was so poetic about.
Because that was part of them being able to buy spectrum? Phones shouldn't be locked at all. If the fraud is as bad as you and verizon claim, then they should be able to implement other means to prevent it.
Contracts don’t matter to the thieves that steal identities to secure phones from carriers/Verizon with $0 down, and immediately resell them.
Happens every single day, even though the carriers have entire teams dedicated to fraud prevention.
It’s too bad there isn’t a way to lock the original eSIM and allow an additional one still. That would be nice for international travel.
Quite a few comparisons to US market vs Europe. I know the mobile phone plans are quite cheap / competitive in Europe compared to the US. Part of the European advantage for the carriers is that there is high population density, compared to the US. So all things considered, you need less cell towers to provide full coverage to more people - vs the US, where there's 400M people across more than twice the area (quick google check shows EU has 470M ppl in 1.7M square miles, vs US is 400M ppl in 3.8M square miles). Canada is even worse - huge land mass, only 40M ppl.
Other thing, I'm genuinely curious, in Europe, where phones come unlocked... you're saying you can get free / highly discounted phones, does this include the latest iPhone generations? Or are these older phones?
In the US, pretty much every carrier will give you a free current generation iPhone (sometime iPhone Pro also), basically for every line you bring (eg. bring 4 lines/numbers, get 4 free latest gen iPhones). Now, part of the "cost" is that you have to sign up for the carrier's more expensive plans. And also that the "discount" is spread over (was 24, now 36) months. But the deals for new subscribers is quite significant.
Sim-lock also doesn’t seem to matter to them, they can easily resell the phone to someone with a Verizon card. Still, it’s the contract that seals the deal and obligation to pay, not the sim-lock like the other poster claimed.
No, they can’t resell the phone to someone on Verizon…. Verizon will blacklist the IMEI (they always know which phones were stolen) so overseas the phone goes!
Again, a contract doesn’t matter if you used stolen/false identity to secure the iPhone in the first place. Like the thieves are scared if Verizon waives a 14-page document at them
