UK Ban on selling locked iPhones begins in late 2021

Posted:
in General Discussion edited October 2020
Saying the practice discourages users from switching carriers, the UK's Ofcom regulatory body has ruled that all phones will have to be sold unlocked from late 2021.

From December 2021, all UK phones must be sold unlocked
From December 2021, all UK phones must be sold unlocked


Ofcom, the UK regulator expected to auction 5G's 700MHz spectrum in early 2021, has announced that it is to ban the sale of phones that are locked to certain carriers. From December 2021, all UK phones must be sold unlocked.

The announcement comes 11 months after Ofcom published its plan to introduce such a ban, with the only new detail being the date. Speaking at the launch of the plan in December 2019, Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom's Consumer Group Director, said that currently "Switching mobile provider can be really frustrating."

"By freeing mobile users from locked handsets, our plans would save people time, effort and money -- and help them unlock a better deal," she continued.

According to BBC News, UK networks had previously argued that locking phones helped to deter theft and fraud. However, possibly to comply with existing EU rules, four of the UK's major carriers already only sell unlocked phones.

Those are O2 -- the UK's original iPhone carrier -- plus Sky, Three, and Virgin. The remaining carriers are BT and its EE division, Vodafone, and Tesco Mobile.

"We stand ready to implement these changes when they come into force," Vodafone told BBC News. EE says it will work with Ofcom to comply.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member
    About bloody time too. The carriers should never have been allowed to lock the phones in the first place!
    ivanhrcfaaderutterGeorgeBMacwilliamlondon
  • Reply 2 of 23
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    saarek said:
    About bloody time too. The carriers should never have been allowed to lock the phones in the first place!
    They locked them becaused they amortized the cost of the phone over period of years, did you really think you were getting that phone for free or at discount.

    Notice BT is one of last carrier still licking phone that is government backed carrier. BY does not want people just walking away.
    GeorgeBMacwilliamlondondewmerazorpit
  • Reply 3 of 23
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    maestro64 said:
    saarek said:
    About bloody time too. The carriers should never have been allowed to lock the phones in the first place!
    They locked them becaused they amortized the cost of the phone over period of years, did you really think you were getting that phone for free or at discount.
    They don’t need to lock the hardware for that, the price is included in the monthly payments of the contract. Even If you switch carriers you’re still liable for the contract.
    aderutterwebweaselelijahgavon b7
  • Reply 4 of 23
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    maestro64 said:

    Notice BT is one of last carrier still licking phone that is government backed carrier. BY does not want people just walking away.
    BT is a public corporation. It isn’t significantly government backed outside of some network infrastructure contracts and hasn’t been for years. 
    edited October 2020 ronnrotateleftbyte
  • Reply 5 of 23
    rcfarcfa Posts: 1,124member
    Long overdue!

    Phone locking is an incentive for phony calling plans with hidden costs, and allows carriers, even after equipment has long been paid for by correspondingly more expensive calling plans, to keep charging extra, or charge outrageous “unlocking fees”.

    Obviously there’s no free lunch, but people should just pay a calling plan, plus either a phone rental fee or an installment plan payment for the equipment, if they are not willing/able to pay for the phone upfront.

    It’s also more responsible to not pay more expensive a phone than one can afford, or have a plan that locks one in a financial responsibility that one my not be able to fulfill in an economically uncertain environment, which then may lead to bad credit with all the ripple effects thereof.

    Best to get whatever phone one can afford to pay at once, and then have a plan without contract, one can change, suspend, or cancel at any time as circumstances change.

    Corporations however don’t want consumers to make smart, good choices, but choices that entangle them in dependencies.
    williamlondonOfer
  • Reply 6 of 23
    As already said, it’s long overdue. The only locked iPhone I ever got was the iPhone3 (possibly 3GS too?) as there was no choice back then you couldn’t even buy outright unlocked from an Apple store which I have done ever since it’s been an option
    williamlondon
  • Reply 7 of 23
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    crowley said:
    maestro64 said:
    saarek said:
    About bloody time too. The carriers should never have been allowed to lock the phones in the first place!
    They locked them becaused they amortized the cost of the phone over period of years, did you really think you were getting that phone for free or at discount.
    They don’t need to lock the hardware for that, the price is included in the monthly payments of the contract. Even If you switch carriers you’re still liable for the contract.

    Early on, when almost all smart phones were financed by the carrier the cost of the phone was buried in the price of the cell service rather than broken out.   There was no explicit recognition that the user was paying for the phone in installments.   So, locking the phone was a way the carrier could protect itself from a customer switching carriers by physically locking the phone to their net work and only their network.

    It was business model that benefited the carriers and phone manufacturers but was very bad for the consumer:   not only were they physically locked into that carrier, but even after the phone was paid for, the carrier continued to charge them for the phone!

    This ruling greatly restricts those unfair practices:  if the carrier wants to finance the phone they have to either do it explicitly in a contract or, if they bury the cost in the cell charges, then they take on the risk if the customer switches to another carrier -- they can't keep his phone tied to their network.
  • Reply 8 of 23
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    There was another aspect to this locking that was even more insidious:   it was when the modem in the phone would only work on certain networks.   While the technophiles often understood it, most average users did not and, even after their phone was "unlocked", it was still locked to the networks of certain carriers because its modem would only work on those networks -- and there was nothing anybody could do to change that.  A Verizon phone would never, ever work on an AT&T network and vice-versa.

    Average, nontechnical users generally had no idea that that was happening.
    And, with 5G and its customizability by the carriers it has the potential for happening again.    I hope that it doesn't.
    ronnapplecored
  • Reply 9 of 23
    crowley said:

    maestro64 said:

    Notice BT is one of last carrier still licking phone that is government backed carrier. BY does not want people just walking away.
    BT is a public corporation. It isn’t significantly government backed outside of some network infrastructure contracts and hasn’t been for years. 
    Indeed. BT hasn’t been government owned since it was privatised the 80s
    edited October 2020
  • Reply 10 of 23
    FWIW the article mentions Sky, Virgin and Tesco but these are all MVNOs anyway. The big 4 are O2 (which used to be owned by BT but is now owned by Telefonica of Spain), Vodafone, EE (now owned by BT but formerly the merged entities of C&W’s one2one and HW’s Orange) and lastly HW’s Three.
    ronn
  • Reply 11 of 23
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    webweasel said:
    crowley said:

    maestro64 said:

    Notice BT is one of last carrier still licking phone that is government backed carrier. BY does not want people just walking away.
    BT is a public corporation. It isn’t significantly government backed outside of some network infrastructure contracts and hasn’t been for years. 
    BT hasn’t been a public corporation since it was privatised the 80s
    Sorry, got my terms mixed up, I meant it's privately owned, and shares are publically traded.  Hope that was clear despite my mangling.
    GeorgeBMac
  • Reply 12 of 23
    fred1fred1 Posts: 1,112member
    I’m glad that Apple has also recently started offering unlocked versions of newly released iPhones from day 1. There used to be a delay of a few weeks. 
    razorpit
  • Reply 13 of 23
    crowley said:
    Sorry, got my terms mixed up, I meant it's privately owned, and shares are publically traded.  Hope that was clear despite my mangling.
    Yes, I’ve edited my response now. Terms for schools are even more open to confusion where UK public schools are private and US ones are state run.
  • Reply 14 of 23
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    crowley said:
    maestro64 said:
    saarek said:
    About bloody time too. The carriers should never have been allowed to lock the phones in the first place!
    They locked them becaused they amortized the cost of the phone over period of years, did you really think you were getting that phone for free or at discount.
    They don’t need to lock the hardware for that, the price is included in the monthly payments of the contract. Even If you switch carriers you’re still liable for the contract.

    Early on, when almost all smart phones were financed by the carrier the cost of the phone was buried in the price of the cell service rather than broken out.   There was no explicit recognition that the user was paying for the phone in installments.   So, locking the phone was a way the carrier could protect itself from a customer switching carriers by physically locking the phone to their net work and only their network.
    That makes no difference, if the customer used the phone on a different network, they would still be liable for the contract; the law protected the carrier, phone locking did not. Locking the phone was purely a way of keeping the customer on after the contract expired.
    webweaselOfer
  • Reply 15 of 23
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member

    webweasel said:
    FWIW the article mentions Sky, Virgin and Tesco but these are all MVNOs anyway. The big 4 are O2 (which used to be owned by BT but is now owned by Telefonica of Spain), Vodafone, EE (now owned by BT but formerly the merged entities of C&W’s one2one and HW’s Orange) and lastly HW’s Three.
    Phones can still be locked to MVNOs.
  • Reply 16 of 23
    UK carriers will have to competitive now to retain customers after 2021!  LOL!
  • Reply 17 of 23
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member
    crowley said:
    maestro64 said:
    saarek said:
    About bloody time too. The carriers should never have been allowed to lock the phones in the first place!
    They locked them becaused they amortized the cost of the phone over period of years, did you really think you were getting that phone for free or at discount.
    They don’t need to lock the hardware for that, the price is included in the monthly payments of the contract. Even If you switch carriers you’re still liable for the contract.
    Correct, but locking the phone “encourages” you to pay up on your contract without them having to jump through a bunch of legal hoops.
  • Reply 18 of 23
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    There was another aspect to this locking that was even more insidious:   it was when the modem in the phone would only work on certain networks.   While the technophiles often understood it, most average users did not and, even after their phone was "unlocked", it was still locked to the networks of certain carriers because its modem would only work on those networks -- and there was nothing anybody could do to change that.  A Verizon phone would never, ever work on an AT&T network and vice-versa.

    Average, nontechnical users generally had no idea that that was happening.
    And, with 5G and its customizability by the carriers it has the potential for happening again.    I hope that it doesn't.
    Are you referring to the CDMA vs GSM days? I wouldn't lump that into the non-technical carrier locking issue being discussed because the non-technical locking can be easily removed. If you had a CDMA phone it could never be "unlocked" to work on a GSM network because the device had different radios installed. I seem to recall that Apple made it very clear that you were buying a carrier specific phone when this was the case, but I suppose some buyers were still unaware and who knows what the sales people communicated to buyers at the time of purchase.

    The locking thing was probably a "scheme" pushed on to Apple by AT&T when AT&T was the only carrier available for iPhone and they demanded a way to preserve exclusivity. Who knows, perhaps AT&T provided Apple with some sort of quality of service (QoS) guarantee if iPhones were locked into to AT&T networks? The iPhone put a lot more connectivity demands on networks back then compared to most any other phone of the day. Yeah, it was a stupid idea in retrospect but Apple probably felt that they needed a special relationship with AT&T to get iPhone launched in a big way. The iPhone's success wasn't a sure thing at the time. Once the iPhone sales exploded and more carriers were brought into the mix the locking thing was probably an artifact of a standard operating procedure and the other carriers wanted in on the same deal that AT&T received.  

    The only carrier locked phone I ever had was an iPhone 4s purchased through AT&T. As soon as it was paid off they removed the lock, with no fee and without prompting. This is a pretty good indicator that whatever reason originally existed for carriers locking phones faded away fairly quickly. Also, the carrier subsidy gimmicky has been toned down somewhat, especially with Apple providing straightforward payment plans for the devices that bypass the carriers entirely. Why any existing carrier would continue with the prehistoric practice of locking phones defies all logic. I hope the UK ban is stated as "Hey carriers, stop being stupid!" 



     
  • Reply 19 of 23
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member
    dewme said:
    There was another aspect to this locking that was even more insidious:   it was when the modem in the phone would only work on certain networks.   While the technophiles often understood it, most average users did not and, even after their phone was "unlocked", it was still locked to the networks of certain carriers because its modem would only work on those networks -- and there was nothing anybody could do to change that.  A Verizon phone would never, ever work on an AT&T network and vice-versa.

    Average, nontechnical users generally had no idea that that was happening.
    And, with 5G and its customizability by the carriers it has the potential for happening again.    I hope that it doesn't.
    Are you referring to the CDMA vs GSM days? I wouldn't lump that into the non-technical carrier locking issue being discussed because the non-technical locking can be easily removed. If you had a CDMA phone it could never be "unlocked" to work on a GSM network because the device had different radios installed. I seem to recall that Apple made it very clear that you were buying a carrier specific phone when this was the case, but I suppose some buyers were still unaware and who knows what the sales people communicated to buyers at the time of purchase.

    The locking thing was probably a "scheme" pushed on to Apple by AT&T when AT&T was the only carrier available for iPhone and they demanded a way to preserve exclusivity. Who knows, perhaps AT&T provided Apple with some sort of quality of service (QoS) guarantee if iPhones were locked into to AT&T networks? The iPhone put a lot more connectivity demands on networks back then compared to most any other phone of the day. Yeah, it was a stupid idea in retrospect but Apple probably felt that they needed a special relationship with AT&T to get iPhone launched in a big way. The iPhone's success wasn't a sure thing at the time. Once the iPhone sales exploded and more carriers were brought into the mix the locking thing was probably an artifact of a standard operating procedure and the other carriers wanted in on the same deal that AT&T received.  

    The only carrier locked phone I ever had was an iPhone 4s purchased through AT&T. As soon as it was paid off they removed the lock, with no fee and without prompting. This is a pretty good indicator that whatever reason originally existed for carriers locking phones faded away fairly quickly. Also, the carrier subsidy gimmicky has been toned down somewhat, especially with Apple providing straightforward payment plans for the devices that bypass the carriers entirely. Why any existing carrier would continue with the prehistoric practice of locking phones defies all logic. I hope the UK ban is stated as "Hey carriers, stop being stupid!" 



     
    I wish that were the case for me. We just moved from AT&T to T-Mobile. My wife’s X, and ironically her old 6 that was replaced by the X, still had a lock on them despite being paid off years ago. My XS was purchased through Apple’s installment plan and had no issues.
    Ofer
  • Reply 20 of 23
    elijahg said:
    Phones can still be locked to MVNOs.
    True but only to the parent network IIRC
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