Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I can understand the logic of making it illegal to purchase a heavily-subsidised SIM-locked phone, and then unlock it, so you can use it on a different network. That's basically fraud, when it comes down to it. I don't know if things are different in the US, but in the UK mobile phone market, very often expensive phones are heavily subsidised by the carrier.
But certainly it's wrong to prevent unlocking in cases where the phone is not subsidised. But then the question arises: how does the company carrying out the unlocking know whether or not the customer has the right to ask for it to be unlocked or not?  |
That's easily solved though, you enforce minimum contract terms.
Buy a subsidised phone in the UK and you're hit with a 18 month contract that ensures they get back the subsidy. At the end of that term there's often a cheaper plan you can move to unless you accept a free upgrade, which is really just a new 18 month contract with a new subsidised phone. Want to cancel the contract after 6 months? You've to pay out the remaining 12 months there and then.
It shouldn't matter one bit whether you cancel and pay the remainder and get the phone unlocked then move to a new provider OR you unlock yourself, move to a new provider AND continue to pay the remaining 12 months of your old contract in addition to the new one.
Now if providers are offering contracts without a minimum term and also selling subsidised hardware, then that's their own fault really. If the law in the US doesn't allow a minimum contract term to claw back a subsidy, then that is what should be made into law, not making it illegal to unlock.
Maybe there's more to the issue than I'm seeing? I just don't see the logic in making it illegal to unlock a device you own to use with different carriers or even to do more with it than the device originally allowed.