But that gets back to the basic issues being discussed here.
When you buy a new pair of pants with a credit card, if you fail to pay, can they come strip the pants off you in the street? Yet there's no call for retailers to be able to repossess your clothes if you don't pay - and a pair of pants costs a lot less than a phone.
The retailer got paid in full from the credit card company. If you don't pay your CC bill they cut you off and sue you.
I'm not sure I follow you. We agree 100% on the commitment part. As in the previous examples I offered when you pay off your house or car they give you the title, not before. Why is a phone any different? You pay it off they give you the unlock code.
Because when you buy a car or a house, you specifically sign a document establishing a lien on the home or car. Without a specific document, the lien doesn't exist. If the phone companies want to put a lien into place on phones, they are free to do that. However, they don't because it requires them to follow various consumer protection laws that they don't want to follow (for example, they would be required to tell you how much you're borrowing, how much of your monthly payment goes for interest and principle, and what interest rate they're charging).
Essentially, they're trying to get the benefit of a lien without having to do the things that the law requires a lien-holder to do. They want the benefits without paying the cost.
The retailer got paid in full from the credit card company. If you don't pay your CC bill they cut you off and sue you.
Just as AT&T has the right to terminate your service and sue you if you don't pay your phone bill.
Modify my analogy if you like. So why can't the credit card company track you down and rip the pants off of you if you don't pay?
Answer: because there's no lien on the pants - just as there's no lien on the phone. You can't have it both ways. Either you get a lien (which involves following the consumer protection laws) or you don't. But if you don't want to follow the consumer protection laws, you don't get a lien. Locking the phones is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to get a lien without doing what would otherwise be required.
Essentially, they're trying to get the benefit of a lien without having to do the things that the law requires a lien-holder to do. They want the benefits without paying the cost.
Makes sense but clearly you understand the advantage that the carriers see in locking the phone. It would be better if they disclosed the amount of the subsidy because I think it is unfair that they still charge the same monthly fee even after you have completed your contract.
I've done several searches and have not been able to find out who the Librarian of Congress reports to. It may be POTUS himself but I can't verify.
This source says that the President appoints a Librarian for life. I would think that he has to report to Congress once in a while, but I don't know he has to obey POTUS orders or not. He's not the Presidential librarian unless we believe the Book of Secrets
"Although the Library of Congress was established in 1800, the office of Librarian was not created until 1802. This 1802 law stipulated that the Librarian of Congress was to be appointed by the president---not by the Congress. In fact, Congress had no formal role in the appointment process until 1897, when the Senate gained the privilege of confirming the president's selection.
No special qualifications are prescribed by law for the job of Librarian of Congress. Nor is a term of office specified, even though in the twentieth century the precedent seems to have been established that a Librarian of Congress is appointed for life."
Makes sense but clearly you understand the advantage that the carriers see in locking the phone.
Of course I understand the advantage that the carriers see. Clearly, they think that it locks in their customers. I just don't see any benefit to the consumers OR the market as a whole.
It would be better if they disclosed the amount of the subsidy because I think it is unfair that they still charge the same monthly fee even after you have completed your contract.
I've argued that all along. For years, I've suggested that the monthly rate should drop after you've completed the contract. However, that doesn't impact directly on the issue being discussed here.
It's not the consumer unlocking that needs to be made legal, it's the telco locking that needs to be made illegal!
As long as you pay for your phone each month as per your contract the telco you're buying it from should have no right to prevent you from using another network whenever you wish. While you are under contract you have to pay off the phone each month and pay for any usage on that telco's network, but you shouldn't be prevented from using another network as well if you wish to.
At the very least contract phones should by law be automatically unlocked when the contract ends and the handset is paid for. There should be no need for the consumer to do anything to unlock it, it should happen automatically by default. The phone no longer belongs to the telco, it is now the consumer's property and should be theirs to do with as they wish.
The principle is important; you should not be prevented from using a device you have paid for with other services. You buy your iPhone, let's say, from AT&T; the phone, if one could talk AT&T into unlocking it, could also be used with T-Mobile and a few other regional providers like i-Wireless, so long as you don't mind not having AWS freqencies. And yet, per the Librarian of Congress, this is a copyright violation? Get real. You've paid the $200 up front for the customer share of the phone; you're committed to paying AT&T $350 in ETF if you walk, thereby more than covering the rest of the cost of the phone to AT&T; what on earth is wrong with being free to use the phone on another carrier?
The answer is, of course, that the carriers' profit model might be jeopardized in the long-run by customers who own a device outright and feel free to move around. Well, guess what. That's competition. Additionally, the carriers live in terror at international travelers having the option to go with prepaid services abroad in much the same way that, er, VoiceStream (remember them, pre-T-Mobile?) customers were able to do a decade ago anyway without having to mess around with multiple SIM cards, what with VoiceStream's 29 cent per minute roaming in Europe and Canada. $1.29 a minute for the same today is sustainable only with monopolistic practices like phone locking.
Verizon seems to already get this, although I think it has more to do with the conditions they had to agree to in order to get such a good chunk of 700MHz spectrum. So, let's just say they get it sufficiently that they've opted not to kick up too much of a fuss about it. The astonishing thing to me is that the professionals in charge of our national library have such an arrogant and over-arching view of copyright. You'd think they would want to open up the spread of information, not confine it.
There's just no good reason for the phone to be locked.
Yes there is, carriers subsidise phones, the carrier's customers pay for it.
Why should YOU pay for another carriers customers to have a cheaper phone?
This is especially relevant with PAYG phones, where if they are sold unlocked some people will take advantage of it and export phones for grey markets.
Yes there is, carriers subsidise phones, the carrier's customers pay for it.
Why should YOU pay for another carriers customers to have a cheaper phone?
This is especially relevant with PAYG phones, where if they are sold unlocked some people will take advantage of it and export phones for grey markets.
What's that got to do with locking phones?
As explained above, when the carrier subsidizes the phone, you are obligated to pay -whether you use the phone or not. Since using the phone on a different network doesn't cost the carrier any money (in fact, it saves them money since they don't have to provide your services), your argument is meaningless. If I sign up for a 2 year $100 per month plan with AT&T, I still have to pay them $2400 whether I use the phone, send it overseas to the gray market, or break it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet.
If the carriers want a lien on the phone, they can get one - but they have to follow the various consumer protection laws. They obviously don't want to to do that, so they're trying an end run.
The gent who set up petition is a known 'unlocker for hire' which is why he wants it to stay legal. If it is illegal, he'll be shut down in a jiffy.
What we need is for locked phones to be gone from day one. All phones should just be sold unlocked like they do in Europe etc. let the carriers subsidize etc if they like but in a separate line item so those that finished a contract etc aren't being overcharged.
... If I sign up for a 2 year $100 per month plan with AT&T, I still have to pay them $2400 whether I use the phone, send it overseas to the gray market, or break it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet. ...
If my phone got broken into little pieces and flushed down the toilet, I think I'd pay the ETF instead of the $2400. The ETF is in the contract, so it's hardly an immoral or illegal breach of it.
I can't speak to AT&T but with Sprint the contract just says you have to have service with them, not a specific plan. When I got my current first phone with them my wife was already on Sprint, so we got a shared plan. Her contract expired and she's gone PAYG on Straight Talk with a new phone. I have 14 months left but was able to switch to an individual plan. The Sprint folks said I could pick any plan so long as I stayed with the company for the remaining 14 months.
Unlocking (factory permanent unlock) is legal. It's just not publicized. But it's a pain in the ass for some people, depending on which phone/carrier they chose.
The subject should be about making unlocking easy.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
But that gets back to the basic issues being discussed here.
When you buy a new pair of pants with a credit card, if you fail to pay, can they come strip the pants off you in the street? Yet there's no call for retailers to be able to repossess your clothes if you don't pay - and a pair of pants costs a lot less than a phone.
The retailer got paid in full from the credit card company. If you don't pay your CC bill they cut you off and sue you.
Because when you buy a car or a house, you specifically sign a document establishing a lien on the home or car. Without a specific document, the lien doesn't exist. If the phone companies want to put a lien into place on phones, they are free to do that. However, they don't because it requires them to follow various consumer protection laws that they don't want to follow (for example, they would be required to tell you how much you're borrowing, how much of your monthly payment goes for interest and principle, and what interest rate they're charging).
Essentially, they're trying to get the benefit of a lien without having to do the things that the law requires a lien-holder to do. They want the benefits without paying the cost.
Just as AT&T has the right to terminate your service and sue you if you don't pay your phone bill.
Modify my analogy if you like. So why can't the credit card company track you down and rip the pants off of you if you don't pay?
Answer: because there's no lien on the pants - just as there's no lien on the phone. You can't have it both ways. Either you get a lien (which involves following the consumer protection laws) or you don't. But if you don't want to follow the consumer protection laws, you don't get a lien. Locking the phones is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to get a lien without doing what would otherwise be required.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Essentially, they're trying to get the benefit of a lien without having to do the things that the law requires a lien-holder to do. They want the benefits without paying the cost.
Makes sense but clearly you understand the advantage that the carriers see in locking the phone. It would be better if they disclosed the amount of the subsidy because I think it is unfair that they still charge the same monthly fee even after you have completed your contract.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ktappe
I've done several searches and have not been able to find out who the Librarian of Congress reports to. It may be POTUS himself but I can't verify.
This source says that the President appoints a Librarian for life. I would think that he has to report to Congress once in a while, but I don't know he has to obey POTUS orders or not. He's not the Presidential librarian unless we believe the Book of Secrets
http://www.loc.gov/loc/legacy/librs.html
"Although the Library of Congress was established in 1800, the office of Librarian was not created until 1802. This 1802 law stipulated that the Librarian of Congress was to be appointed by the president---not by the Congress. In fact, Congress had no formal role in the appointment process until 1897, when the Senate gained the privilege of confirming the president's selection.
No special qualifications are prescribed by law for the job of Librarian of Congress. Nor is a term of office specified, even though in the twentieth century the precedent seems to have been established that a Librarian of Congress is appointed for life."
Of course I understand the advantage that the carriers see. Clearly, they think that it locks in their customers. I just don't see any benefit to the consumers OR the market as a whole.
I've argued that all along. For years, I've suggested that the monthly rate should drop after you've completed the contract. However, that doesn't impact directly on the issue being discussed here.
As long as you pay for your phone each month as per your contract the telco you're buying it from should have no right to prevent you from using another network whenever you wish. While you are under contract you have to pay off the phone each month and pay for any usage on that telco's network, but you shouldn't be prevented from using another network as well if you wish to.
At the very least contract phones should by law be automatically unlocked when the contract ends and the handset is paid for. There should be no need for the consumer to do anything to unlock it, it should happen automatically by default. The phone no longer belongs to the telco, it is now the consumer's property and should be theirs to do with as they wish.
The answer is, of course, that the carriers' profit model might be jeopardized in the long-run by customers who own a device outright and feel free to move around. Well, guess what. That's competition. Additionally, the carriers live in terror at international travelers having the option to go with prepaid services abroad in much the same way that, er, VoiceStream (remember them, pre-T-Mobile?) customers were able to do a decade ago anyway without having to mess around with multiple SIM cards, what with VoiceStream's 29 cent per minute roaming in Europe and Canada. $1.29 a minute for the same today is sustainable only with monopolistic practices like phone locking.
Verizon seems to already get this, although I think it has more to do with the conditions they had to agree to in order to get such a good chunk of 700MHz spectrum. So, let's just say they get it sufficiently that they've opted not to kick up too much of a fuss about it. The astonishing thing to me is that the professionals in charge of our national library have such an arrogant and over-arching view of copyright. You'd think they would want to open up the spread of information, not confine it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
There's just no good reason for the phone to be locked.
Yes there is, carriers subsidise phones, the carrier's customers pay for it.
Why should YOU pay for another carriers customers to have a cheaper phone?
This is especially relevant with PAYG phones, where if they are sold unlocked some people will take advantage of it and export phones for grey markets.
What's that got to do with locking phones?
As explained above, when the carrier subsidizes the phone, you are obligated to pay -whether you use the phone or not. Since using the phone on a different network doesn't cost the carrier any money (in fact, it saves them money since they don't have to provide your services), your argument is meaningless. If I sign up for a 2 year $100 per month plan with AT&T, I still have to pay them $2400 whether I use the phone, send it overseas to the gray market, or break it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet.
If the carriers want a lien on the phone, they can get one - but they have to follow the various consumer protection laws. They obviously don't want to to do that, so they're trying an end run.
What we need is for locked phones to be gone from day one. All phones should just be sold unlocked like they do in Europe etc. let the carriers subsidize etc if they like but in a separate line item so those that finished a contract etc aren't being overcharged.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
... If I sign up for a 2 year $100 per month plan with AT&T, I still have to pay them $2400 whether I use the phone, send it overseas to the gray market, or break it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet. ...
If my phone got broken into little pieces and flushed down the toilet, I think I'd pay the ETF instead of the $2400. The ETF is in the contract, so it's hardly an immoral or illegal breach of it.
I can't speak to AT&T but with Sprint the contract just says you have to have service with them, not a specific plan. When I got my current first phone with them my wife was already on Sprint, so we got a shared plan. Her contract expired and she's gone PAYG on Straight Talk with a new phone. I have 14 months left but was able to switch to an individual plan. The Sprint folks said I could pick any plan so long as I stayed with the company for the remaining 14 months.
The subject should be about making unlocking easy.