Unlocking the Mobile Phone: Why we need to go SIM-Free
Too many mobile phone network operators are behaving in a parasitic way that hurts customers and manufacturers, protected by a number of myths and misunderstandings. Why do customers let them get away with it, and why didn't Apple's Steve Jobs take them on when the iPhone gave him the chance?
Unlocking the Mobile Phone
You want to buy a car, so what do you do?
Would you do the following?
Go to the nearest fuel station and agree to buy all your fuel from them for two years. Also agree to pay a hefty monthly fee to cover the cost of the fuel and car. You pay for fuel every month even if you don't use any, plus extra charges if you use more than the agreement states. In return, the fuel station supplies you with any car from their very limited range, all of which have been altered to reject fuel from any other supplier.
Very few people would sign up for a "deal" like the one above, because it would be so restrictive about what you can do and where you can drive, and gives you no option of changing supplier if you become unhappy with the service. Moving abroad or selling the car on as a used model would also be far more difficult.
Beyond just the consumer's point of view, the government might well be unhappy with a situation where competition is being eroded at no advantage to the consumer, and might move to ban such a "deal".
Yet every week millions of people take up a similarly poor "deal":
Go to the nearest phone network operator and agree to only use their network for two years, and also agree to pay a hefty monthly fee to cover the cost of calls and the phone. You have to pay for the calls even if you don't make any, and there are extra charges if you use the network more than the agreement states. In return the phone network supply you with a phone from their very limited range, all of which have been altered to refuse to work on any other network. A locked phone.
Why do people buy locked phones?
There are many reasons why people buy phones locked by phone network operators, but the chief one is that customers are being misled on many different levels. The network operators build up myths which protect their own position of power over which phones are sold and how those phones can be used.
Myth 1: "You have to buy a phone from a network operator, it won't work otherwise"
And the truth is: People can buy a phone from anyone, just like they do with cars. Unlocked phones work at least as well (and often even better) than locked ones, phone network operators do not and cannot prevent unlocked phones using their network.
As long as a phone conforms to the current GSM standard and operates on the correct frequencies for the continent it's being used in (European/Asian phones in Europe and Asia, Americas phones in North and South America, tri -band or quad-band phones work anywhere), the phone will work on any SIM card from any GSM network. It doesn't matter whether the operators of those networks want it to or not, in fact it doesn't matter if the operators have even heard of the phone.
Note about CDMA: Some pockets of the world have CDMA network coverage but no GSM network coverage. Some people claim that CDMA networks just can't use SIM cards the way the GSM standard does, but this too is a myth. An equivalent to SIM cards called R-UIM cards have been available to CDMA network operators for several years now, and although many operators may not support them, the technology exists and it's the operators' fault if they don't make it available to their customers. R-UIM cards can be used in GSM phones too, so they would let people use the same number and billing account on both CDMA and GSM networks, which would be very handy when roaming.
Myth 2: "Phones are too expensive to buy at retail, you have to buy it with an operator's subsidy"
And the truth is: A basic 2006 model phone from major manufacturers such as Motorola or Nokia can be bought at retail unlocked and SIM-free for as little as $30 plus sales tax. Music phones can be bought unlocked for the same price as an equivalent capacity iPod, and people clearly have no trouble affording iPods at retail. Even smartphones are becoming relatively cheap nowadays: the Nokia E50 running S60 3rd Edition can be bought unlocked for as little as $200 plus sales tax.
Almost all phone users in rich countries can easily afford to buy their own phone. Even in developing countries a $30 phone isn't beyond the means of most families or villages, especially if the phone brings in extra income and pays for itself.
Myth 3: "Phones from network operators are cheap or free!"
And the truth is: They're not cheap or free at all!
Phones from network operators usually end up costing you more than if you bought them separately. You pay for these "cheap" or "free" phones in installments, as part of the monthly fee for using a phone service goes on paying for the "cheap" or "free" handsets. To top it all, the phone you get is locked to one network and sometimes crippled in some way, so it's not even as functional as a SIM-free model.
There are already many different forms of consumer credit for people who want to buy something in installments, such as credit cards, bank loans and store credit. These services are regulated by the government and in direct competition with each other, so they usually offer better and clearer terms than phone network operators. You'll see exactly what you're paying for, you'll be able to buy absolutely any compatible phone model from any retailer whether the operator approves or not, it won't have its functions restricted by the operator, and you'll probably end up paying less for it overall.
Myth 4: "The operators optimise the phone to work best on the network."
And the truth is: They don't. The only things phone networks do to phones they sell are to brand them and cripple them, sometimes seriously.
Here's a good example: The Nokia E61 smartphone was a very popular model in Europe, and included Wi-Fi compatibility so you could surf the web and make internet phone calls for free when at home or in a hotspot. The American operators who were going to offer the phone didn't like this idea, and would only sell the E61 with its Wi-Fi removed. Nokia, faced with a choice of no American E61 sales or some American E61 sales, relented and the E62 was born: a phone absolutely identical to the E61 but with its Wi-Fi features removed to make free internet access impossible. American users of the E62 were forced into paying for internet access that should have been free, because the networks crippled their phone.
The E61/E62 affair isn't an isolated incident either, in the past many phones sold by network operators have had Bluetooth compatibility removed so that people couldn't download free ringtones or wallpaper from their PC or another phone. And, perhaps most infamously, operators frequently set the internet features of phones sold by them to have a "walled garden", where the user finds it difficult to access any web sites but the operator-approved ones.
Another problem with locked phones has surfaced in recent years as phone manufacturers are making their latest firmware freely available on the internet, so that users can update their phones themselves. If you have a locked phone, there's a good chance it won't work with the firmware update services because the network operators' customisation makes the phone incompatible with the new firmware. Special editions of the firmware have to be created for locked phones, but these can take a while to appear because there are so many different operators around the world with so many different customisations. Sometimes locked phones never get firmware updates available on the internet.
In theory there are some internet and multimedia message operator-specific settings which are pre-installed in locked phones, but these aren't required for basic functions such as calls or text messages, and can be installed automatically in any SIM-free phone by a text message from the operator (you just have to request such a message). Often the settings messages are automatically requested the first time you use a new phone with your SIM card.
Myth 5: "You can unlock the phone if you really want to, so locking really makes no difference."
And the truth is: Many countries now have laws or agreements that phone network operators have to allow customers to unlock their phones after a certain period, but how many people even know about this issue? And why should anyone have to unlock something they own?
Would it be acceptable if a fuel station and car sales chain locked cars they sold into only using that chain's fuel? Surely that would raise severe anti-trust issues?
Even when you do unlock a phone, you still have to contend with the operator customisations, and if they've crippled the phone's hardware (as was the case with the E62) then unlocking it won't make any difference, it's still a crippled phone. The operator customisations may also continue to cause problems with firmware updates.
Myth 6: "The phone network operators give people on contracts great package deals which they couldn't get otherwise."
And the truth is: It's similar to a trick that a certain fast food chain beginning with M does: raise the portions and then raise the total prices. Pretty soon people are eating more than they've ever eaten before, and use their phones purely to use up their minutes. Then, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they use up their minutes they think the monthly fee they pay is reasonable.
A much better way of doing things would be to simply lower the call charges, and let customers decide if they then want to make more phone calls.
Package deals from phone networks have one purpose above all: to confuse the customer so that they cannot easily compare the prices of different phone network operators. If people can't compare prices, they have no reason to switch operator, and stay with whoever they use at the moment. It's anti-competitive, so consequently keeps prices higher and services poorer.
Myth 7: "Phones need phone network operators, that's why they have unusual pricing arrangements."
And the truth is: There's nothing special about phones. Cars need fuel, people need food, computers need internet connections, but none of these services are sold in packages where the supplier has signed the user to a 2 year contract, and none of them lock the user's hardware.
There is no reason for phones to be priced any differently to devices that use the internet or even just electricity.
Myth 8: "Operators who receive a steady income from contracts and locked phones are able to provide better services."
And the truth is: Finland has almost universal phone service coverage, you can get a phone signal and internet connection even in the middle of a forest miles from the nearest village, and even in the north which is within the Arctic Circle. High speed mobile networks are also increasingly common and available in every major city including those in the north. Finland has half the population density of the United States, and a lower average income per head.
How is it that Finland, a poorer, lower-density country without phone contracts, and with a law banning locked phones, developed far better phone coverage than America, the land of locked phones and 2 year contracts?
2006 GSM coverage in the USA and Finland.
(Note that the pale areas on the Finnish map indicate service available with an external aerial, while the pale areas on the American map indicate no service at all)
Something has gone terribly wrong with phone network operators: the middle-man has suddenly become the king.
The phone network operators have power over their suppliers and their customers, and can dictate terms to both of them. The operators don't have to try very hard at all, so the prices stay higher and the service quality stays lower.
There are real world examples which prove that phone locking simply isn't necessary, and can actually be immensely harmful to consumers. Here's one of them:
Welcome to Finland
Until 2006, the Finnish government completely outlawed the locking of mobile phones. This led to a mobile culture where phones were separate from their network operator, just as a PC is separate from its ISP and a car is separate from a fuel station. Finnish people bought phones in the same way they bought cars, PCs or televisions, based on the merits of each model and from the widest possible selection of retailers. If they couldn't afford to pay for it up front, they paid the retailer on credit, just like they would with any other purchase.
Network operators only supplied SIM cards, and service was available on a monthly basis with no long-term contract. It's possible to change an operator in Finland within a few days without even changing your number, so if you found another operator has better prices, there was absolutely no reason to stay with the more expensive operator.
All these together, the unlocked phones, the non-contract service, the ease of changing network operator, create something of great benefit to the consumer: fierce competition.
Once consumers are able to switch from one provider to another without penalty, there's absolutely nothing to stop your customers leaving you when they're unhappy. Prices of calls in Finland tumbled while services improved as the operators did what they were supposed to do and competed to keep their customers from switching. Prices of calls were also clearly laid out, there was one single rate for all calls anywhere any time, so it was incredibly easy to compare different operators.
But then one day...
All was great for Finnish phone subscribers: phone calls were cheap and getting cheaper, it was easy to compare prices, people could buy any phone model they wanted, none of the phones were crippled or altered in any way, and phone coverage was good, with new 3G and other high speed data services constantly expanding.
How Steve Jobs threw away a chance to make a real difference with the iPhone
If one person has recently had a chance to fight against all this, it was Steve Jobs when he announced the iPhone. The iPhone was perhaps the most high profile launch of a single phone model for many years. It is also the sister product of the iPod range which is sold entirely at retail without any kind of subsidies for several hundred dollars per unit plus taxes, about the same price as SIM-free unlocked phones.
If Steve Jobs had wanted to, he could have launched the iPhone explicitly as a SIM-free smartphone, just as the Macintosh computer is sold explicitly ISP-free. He could have cut the phone network operators out of the picture completely. People will buy sim-free phones if they understand how unnecessary and restrictive network operator involvement is, as shown by the success of the phone market in entirely SIM-free countries like Finland (used to be!). Selling direct works for the iPod and the Mac, so why not the iPhone too?
Selling the iPhone exclusively SIM-free would also have allowed Apple to launch exactly the same model worldwide, which would have saved them money on production costs, brought it to the market more quickly, made it more reliable and made it easier to repair.
America isn't a market where SIM-free phones are even known about. Many Americans don't even realise they CAN use a SIM-free phone without the approval of their operator, and most tend to choose whatever their operator offers. Steve Jobs could have cut through all that, demolished this myth completely and virtually invented a whole new market segment in the US by selling the iPhone directly. The phone network middle men would have been powerless because the iPhone/iPod brand is so strong, and the entire phone world would have owed Jobs an immense amount of gratitude.
Instead, Jobs caved in to the power of the phone network operators and the iPhone has been crippled:
- If you want to buy an iPhone SIM-free, you can't.
- If you want to buy an iPhone and use it with a non-Cingular network, you can't.
- If you want to buy an iPhone but you don't live in a Cingular coverage area, you can't.
- If you want to buy an iPhone without a 2 year contract, you can't.
The fact that the iPhone is locked to a particular network fundamentally restricts who can buy it and how they can use it, in a way that isn't true with any other Apple product.
How would Apple fans react if the latest Mac computer was exclusively locked to a particular ISP, was only available to people who live in that ISP's service area, and people had to sign up to a 2 year contract with that ISP? The Apple fans would be mad as hell, so why on earth are they having to put up with exactly the same restrictions on a portable, pocket-sized Mac computer called the iPhone?
Jobs could still sell the iPhone exclusively SIM-free outside America, and it would be extremely interesting if he did that. He can do it in America when Apple's current agreement with Cingular expires, but there's no indication so far that Apple will do anything except toe the line like all other manufacturers in the US market have always done.
It's testament to the restrictive and stifling power of the US phone network operators that they can force a product as highly anticipated as the iPhone to be sold through them rather than being sold directly.
Parasitic Phone Network Operators have to be reined in
The immense power network operators wield through a combination of locked phones and long term contracts is anti-competitive. It keeps prices high and services poor, it stops people being able to buy phones they want, vastly reduces the choice of phones available, and cripples the phones that customers are allowed to buy. Consumers are harmed by it, manufacturers are harmed by it, services are harmed by it and products are harmed by it. On top of all that, it locks people into regularly buying phones they don't want or need as "free" upgrades, so there's an environmental cost too.
Mobile phones are more than luxuries now, most of the developing world is coming to depend on the mobile phone not just as a communications device but as infrastructure for banking and commerce. Mobile phones are about to become, for the first time in their history, genuinely important to the majority of people on the globe.
Phone network operators must not be allowed to sponge off the world's poor, and for everyone's sake, rich and poor, this anti-competitive and parasitic behaviour has to stop.
How to free the phone
This is all easier said than done, of course, and much of the change has to be cultural as well as technical or legal. Here are three suggestions that would help bring about this change:
- Phone-locking should be completely illegal.
- Phone network operators should not be allowed to sell phones.
- "Free" phones should not be called free, but labelled exactly like any other product bought on installments with the real total price and interest rate clearly marked on all advertising.
As the Finnish example showed though, the phone operators have a tremendous lobbying power which is difficult to overcome. While we're waiting for enough politicians to realise and accept that the operators are worth taking on, we can make a difference right now by doing the following:
1. Don't buy phones from operators
2. Don't sign long term contracts with operators
3. Buy phones SIM-free from high street and online electronics retailers and other non-operator shops
The more we do those three things, the less power the operators have, and the freer, cheaper and better the phone world becomes.
Krisse, 25 Feb 2007
Published by krisse at 16:06 UTC, February 25th 2007
Categories: Comment, Hardware
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition, UIQ 3
Feature Discussion
Thats what I would say because the networks give you the option of buying the phone when its really NEW. Here in India, all phones are SIM free, even the GSM networks that sell phones don't lock them because they feel safe. Number portability hasn't arrived here so this makes users think twice before switching networks as if they switch, the number would change for sure.
Now the downside, New Smartphones are launched at an exceptionally high price (Rs 38,000 to Rs. 40,000, one can buy a high end PC or a motorbike instead) which makes them unaffordable for the common man. There are no networks that give you an affordable price plan to help you buy the phone when its new. True, credit cards and loan companies are always there but by the time you pay half your installments, you find that the phone's price has already came down by 50%. With phone companies, atleast one gets freebies like Free Text messages or Call minutes, nothing like that when you buy via credit card.
In the car business it is possible to buy a car even if you don't have enough money to pay for it at that time. You borrow the money, and you pay rent. In the car business you don't borrow the money from the petrol supplier, but from independent borrowing companies, or from the dealer selling the car (the dealer acts as a reseller for the borrowing companies). The rent on car loans is well-known to be very high.
The advantage for the consumer is that he can have a car that has/bestows more status than he could afford if he has to pay upfront. It's the same with these locked phones.
But I think one of the biggest barriers at the moment is that there are no incentives not to buy a locked phone.
If I buy an unlocked phone I still have to sign up for the same price plans (unless I pay as you go which I don't want to do for convenience) with the same call rates as the 'free' phone deals :frown:
I can't see the operators offering cheaper call deals for customers that don't buy phones from them.
Also Number porting (in the UK at least) takes far too long - upto 2 or 3 weeks for the old operator to release and the new operator to adopt your number. I am sure there's no good reason for this other than that they do it in their own good time (similar to bank cheque deposits taking days to hit your account :mad: ). In the meantime movers have the inconvenience of juggling 2 numbers and account/bills.
If a standard time of say 3 or 4 days could be implemented (say 2 to release and 2 to adopt) then it dould be done within a working week.
Cheers
Jago
Is it possible with all GSM US operators? Both for prepaid and postpaid options?
For the customers, do they sign up for same call/data rates or cheaper ones compared to contract with locked/included phones?
I personally think these questions are key whether buying unlocked phone is worth the extra price...
Something the author forgot to mention about the contracts was the early termination fee that comes attached with them. If for some reason, you want to terminate your service with a network, say, 20 months into your 24-month contract you still get the privilege of paying them something between $150-$200 as a penalty.
Although the fact is little advertised, I believe it is possible to sign up for service with a GSM operator in the US without signing a contract if you bring your own phone. Yes, you'll have to pay the same rates as those on contract, but remember you're free to leave the provider whenever you choose without the termination penalty.
As a US user of unbranded/unlocked Nokias for a few years, I can say it's much better.
The problem is, though, as someone else posted, pricing.
Carriers give discounts on the price of the phone, not on the price of the service, which is truly their "product."
What I see promising is the evolution towards ISP pricing. If you sign a contract, you pay a discounted MONTHLY RATE for the length of that contract. When it's up, you can pay the month-to-month rate, or sign a new contract and get another discounted monthly rate.
As was pointed out by Ollywompus on my blog a while back, they could even do this at the same time as offering equipment discounts. Just have a Bring Your Own Equipment plan with the monthly discount.
Thus, I would walk into a Cingular store, and I'd have 2 options:
1. Pay $30 for a new $180 cellphone, and pay $39.99/month w/ a 2-year contract (basically what you get now)
OR
2. Pay $180 for the same phone (full retail, or bring my own phone) and pay 32.99/month with a 2-year contract.
End of story, at the end of 2 years, my out of pocket expenses are
1. $30 + (39.99*24) = $989.76
2. $180 + (32.99*24)= $971.76
Roughly the same, but it conditions people off the "free phone" syndrome. The carrier still makes money, and they still have a reason for people to sign contracts.
The only problem is that ARPU will go down, but I think investors will be happy if there's also a reduction in physical inventory costs.
In Asian and European countries, their networks are advance enough to have customers signing contracts with really good phones and service. But in the US, our networks are laughably bad, and therefore all the US phones are crappy as hell.
Also, we are paying WAY TOO MUCH for monthly rates and data rates AND overcharges here in the US. My friends that came from other countries were shocked to find out how expansive with little features/minutes the phones and networks we have in the US, they're especially upset with the ridiculous charges that came with using too many minutes and the instant SMS texting fees.
On top of all, US still has no presence of 3G because of unavailability and overpricing.
I think if the carriers can provide good service and technology, a locked phone isn't too much of a problem, but obviously they're not.
Seriously, Americans still think "pink" MotoRAZR is novel technology....
huh...brainwashed by carriers.
During my last trip to US, I felt compelled to compare US operator's quality visa a vis India operator's quality and find little or no difference. Dataspeeds were comparable in those places where they will be acutally used (homes/office).
However the call rates are so cheap in India! Just about 10-20 cents per minute. Ofcourse India has very high no of cell users, one cant ignore that fact. But apart from that there is nothing. Those operators would try to sell stupid ideas giving them name as another brilliant "idea!".
I ended up buying a T Mobile DASH, unlocked it and use it with an Indian ISP. Kind of having goods of both the world. I have free WIFI at home and office and hence dont miss those high speed net access much. But thats about it.
T-Mobile offer a £7.50p/m 'no contract' tariff offering 50 free mins a month.
But possibly some of the best 'no contract' deals are to be had by signing up as PAYG but also setting up a monthly direct debit. Spares you all the inconvenience of PAYG but can get you some decent free txt/data bundles for a very low monthly fee.
Orange - Top up £10p/m & get 300 free txts & 4mb data
T-mobile - Top up £10p/m & get free evening & weekend txts.
Obviously depends on your usage needs but I've managed to half my monthly bill with the PAYG set up.
- The iPhone is locked to a network provider because Apple wanted to offer a new feature called Visual Voicemail... but to provide it the network that the iPhone is used on needs to build a proprietary backend server system to enable this. You must be able to understand that Cingular would want to lock any iPhone customers in to get some guaranteed revenue to cover development of this system.
If you #could# get an iPhone SIM free and you used it on your GSM network of choice, you wouldn't get Visual Voicemail (which Apple seem to think is a big deal and an essential part of the whole 'experience' - personally I couldn't care less!).
- In the UK, I have 2 choices - take out a restrictive, 12-18 lock in monthly contract, or get a Pay as you Go SIM. There is no option, from any provider, to get a 'SIM only' Monthly contract which doesn't provide a phone as well and therefore doesn't lock you in for a year or more to make sure you pay the subsidies that are funding the phone.
So, go for the PAYG option you say. The problem here is if you have a smartphone, you will use a lot of the data features on the phone as well as just making calls. And on PAYG in the UK no provider offers a 'data bundle' that gives you reduced data prices, you have to pay the full price, 'ad hoc' prices, which are just daylight robbery! How does £3 per MB sound to you?
You can ONLY get reduced rates on Data tarrifs if you buy a 'data bundle' on... your restrictive lock in monthly contract!
And finally, I have an N73. I can buy this phone SIM free in the UK for £290. If I did this I would then have to pay for my calls on top.
If I look on a website like Mobilechecker, I can find are over 20 tarrif packages for an N73 that over the lock in period would cost me less than £290, AND give me more call minutes than I need! Of course, if the service is rubbish I am stuck, but if its ok (I have been on all the UK networks apart from 3 and they are all as bad as each other!) I can threaten my current network that I am going to go to a competitor, and usually they will offer me an undocumented, highly competitive rate (which is just my last rate minus the phone subsidy) to stay with them...
Yes its a stupid way of running a business... but it seems all the phone networks in the UK are working as a cartel and only offering the same contractual options.
- In the UK, I have 2 choices - take out a restrictive, 12-18 lock in monthly contract, or get a Pay as you Go SIM. There is no option, from any provider, to get a 'SIM only' Monthly contract which doesn't provide a phone as well and therefore doesn't lock you in for a year or more to make sure you pay the subsidies that are funding the phone.
[/quote]
Yes, T-Mobile has such a sim-free-no-strings contract. And other networks might have one too. Of course, they're usually hidden away deep down their web site and you really need to know where to look to find them.
[quote=Webbunny;301533]
You can ONLY get reduced rates on Data tarrifs if you buy a 'data bundle' on... your restrictive lock in monthly contract!
[/quote]
Not anymore. The situation is (slowly) improving. T-Mobile PAYG charges £7.50/MB but caps at £1/day after which you can keep browsing for free. So in effect you get unlimited (well, unlimited provided that you don't exeed 2GB/month) data on PAYG for £1 max per day.
Also, if you get the T-Mobile SIM-free contract, you can add the Web'n Walk option for unlimited data. The last time i looked it worked out at £15/month for 50 minutes X-Net + unlimited data (again unlimited up to 2GB) cancelable at anytime.
Orange has an unlimited data bundle for PAYG that costs £1 and is valid for a day (until midnight the day you buy it). Some say that if you use it over 3G, it's actually limited to 25MB but i haven't been able to find confirmation of that on the Orange web site the last time i looked. They also have a £4 bundle for 4MB valid for a month (good for the occasional email checking).
Thanks for letting me know this, I'm obviously not up to date on current deals! I just checked out the T-Mobile Pay Monthly SIM only deal, the 'Web n Walk day pass' that costs £1/day for 40MB is restricted by the same 'fair use policy'' that stops you doing anything but HTTP traffic, which Steve L found unacceptable. If you go for a 12/18 month lock in contract you can now get 'Web n Walk Plus' which relaxes these restrictions enough to make the service useful.
I'm on Orange at the mo, and I have their 10MB/month bundle added which cost me £8. If I was on PAYG and did their 'day pass' 8 days a month, it would cost the same and give me 200MB over the 8 days... Crazy!
The perfect situation for me would be T-Mobile Monthly SIM only with 'W n W Plus'... oh well, just another 12 months of my contract to go, maybe they'll be offering something like that by then!
£7.50 per mb is not cheap & even their *kind* offer to cap the the charge at £1 per day, could potentially still mount up to a whopping £30 per month - just for data usage alone.
:o
I don't think that this is at all fair for the following reasons.
1. The network providers do not make it clear that their phones are branded and locked to the network. They tell you that the phone is yours but I do not recall them stating that the phone will be locked to their network or that it may not provide the full functionality of that device e.g. you may not be able to download the latest firmware updates or that their own branded software could interfere with the performance of the phone. This I think deceives the customer.
2. The network providers subsidise the cost of the phone but reclaim that money back over the term of a fixed length contract. This implies that the contract includes a charge for the phone subsidy. Hence when the contract expires why does your monthly charge not get reduced. i.e. their should be alternative advertised contracts for people who carry on using an old phone or buy their own phones and want to have a monthly contract.
3. What gives the phone companies the right to lock a phone to their network. Yes this would be fine if you were just renting the handset but you are not, they make it very clear that the device is yours. So why do you have to pay to get the phone unlocked if you want to sell it on the open market to someone who wants to use it on another network.
So being in the UK I'm strongly thinking about raising these objections with [url=http://www.ofcom.org.uk/]Ofcom[/url] and seeing what they say. Typically the complaints side of their website is down today.
Great article, totally agree with your sentiments. The so called "service" providers & there's a misnomer, if ever there was one, are holding us to random.
I'm in the middle of a wrangle just now between Vodafone UK & Nokia regarding firmware upgrades for the E70. Nokia have released upgrades but Vodafone won't allow them to be released. If I can get out of the contract, I will, & buy an unlocked E70 or E65.
Basically I wanted the phone to use VOIP as it's got a, not fully functional SIP, client. However, crippled as it is with Vodafone's crappy firmware, it's still capable of making phone calls via WiFi, when I'm at my rented flat in Ireland, where I work, with no landline, but with cable broadband.
This allows my friends & colleagues in the UK to call a local number to get me in the evenings & me to call them cheaply as well.
I'm taking the phone & a travel router with me to the states in a couple of weeks & will hopefully be making cheap calls from their too. My UK number will be on divert to voicemail before I leave the UK, with a message detailing the VOIP number.
I can't see politicians helping, by making locking & branding illegal, as per the old Finnish model, as in my humble & increasingly cynical opinion, they're all corrupt & in the pockets of the likes of mobile telcos.
It'll take the mass market, voting with their feet, exploiting any & all technologies, that bypasses the mobile & fixed line telecos to, force through these changes.
To get the mass market moving, will require the technically savvy early adopters, constantly pushing the case & exploiting whatever methods are available to erode these parasites businesses.
Hopefully most of those on that leading edge are also firmly in the anti-microsoft, pro linux/mac camp as well.
I share your disappointment at Apple's U-Turn by making the iPhone conform to the mobile operators model. As you say, a golden opportunity squandered, but perhaps only in the USA.
Europe, please keep the iPhone out of the hands of the mobile telecos.
As I've suggested, to more than one VOIP operator, maybe they should try to beat the mobile telecos at their own game. Get together, do deals with Nokia & others to bulk buy, uncrippled, SIP capable phones from the hardware vendors & sell them to the public with, low profit margins or better still, really play them at their own game, subsidised by a consortium of VOIP operators or with reasonable finance deals, bundled with a flexible mix of VOIP/PSTN call credit, PAYG mobile minutes & mobile broadband bandwidth.
Incidentally has anyone done a cost analysis of a VOIP call over mobile broadband compared to a traditional mobile call? I'd love to know the figures.
Also, does anyone do a PAYG mobile broadband service or have some other technique, to act as a backup to a ADSL/cable line.
Let's bring these evil empires down.
Oh & while I'm on a ranting roll - if junkmailers send you, crap & a pre-paid envelope, send them their own & any other crap of your choice, right back in the envelope.
For comparison on Vodafone, the cheapest contract with a phone is Anytime 75, gives 75 mins & 100 texts , costs £20.
The cheapest, sim-only contract is also £20, but you get either 150 mins & 500 texts or 300 mins & 100 texts.
So in other words, the phone subsidy is the equivalent of 225 mins or 75 mins & 400 texts.
I'd say over half of the monthly fee is going towards repaying the "subsidy".
Also, after a contract expires, do you legally own the phone or does the teleco retain some ownership rights?
Once out of contract can you legally insist on getting the phone reflashed with the manufacturer's firmware rather than the teleco branded, crippled crap?
Another personal annoyance is the habit mobile phone networks have of putting their name all over your phone. My Sharp 902 has Vodafone written on it in five places, Sharp is only written once!
There are 3 operators in Singapore currently,Singtel,Starhub,M1
I am using a N6230i on a 2 year contract on Starhub,I tried my phone with sim cards from the other operators and it worked fine...
So I guess operators do not lock their phones, and yes,you are allowed to keep your phone when you terminate or have completed your 2 year plan,no questions asked ..
The most is that they will ask you to fill out a customer survey form.
The usefulness of unlocked phone is:
1) if, for some reasons, you travel in different countries part of the year, you can use a SIM from the local operator, which costs much less to use than the roaming charges.
2) if you bought an expensive, unlocked, phone, you can use it when you find a better plan from another operator and switch. With a locked phone, you have to either get it unlocked or toss it.
If customers can get a $300 phone for less than $100 locked, most will choose locked. Most like the *idea* of an unlocked phone, but the biggest problem is that within 2 years most people either tire of, lose, break or damage their phone.
What the U.S. definitely needs is 1) regulation of predatory branding, and 2) much more extreme competition to lower costs of voice and data services.
At least one GSM carrier that I'm aware of in the US does require users to use their phones. An unlocked phone will not work properly on their network. The company is Net10. There is something "extra" that they put in the firmware of the phones that they sell so that it will work properly with their SIM card. According to people who have tried it, an unlocked GSM phone with the Net10 GSM SIM will not work.
However, most GSM companies do NOT do this so an unlocked GSM phone (with the required band) will work with their SIM card on their network.
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