"Taking away peoples freedom is whats best for users! It's the American way!"
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The FCC is the one taking away people’s freedom here, by preventing users from entering the kind of contract that T-Mobile and AT&T are offering.
Consenting adults are happy to sign up on those terms, and the FCC is proposing to prevent that arrangement.
The carriers make an excellent point that without that lock-in, the sale of the phone is less valuable to them. This means they won’t be able to offer the heavy subsidies on phones any longer.
This is the government preventing contracts between consenting adults. The government is reducing freedom here.
So the story is 'if they have to be unlocked, we can't offer discounts on the phones'.
Okay fine but uh, the last time I used a post-paid subsidized phone, I signed a contract. That stipulated how much I'd pay for however many months, and what the early cancellation fee was, as well as what the required buy-out for the phone was if I left early.
In what way is that insufficient to ensure that a customer spends the money to justify the subsidy?
Yes you signed a contract. That contract has a certain value to it, and that value offsets the cost to them of the phone.
On your side, the fact that this contract came with a subsidized phone made it worth it to you.
What the carriers are saying is that this set of interrelated contracts won’t be available, and so these terms won’t be worthwhile to the parties involved, leading to a change in future contracts. Namely, the service contracts will have to be more expensive to them, which will make them less valuable to you, which will make them less likely to happen.
It's just a lie. I don't think it's meant to hold up to scrutiny, it's just meant to be repeated.
What are you saying is a lie? What claim exactly?
That's exactly right. Users will have to purchase phones on credit like we do for every other major (and sometimes minor) purchase. This doesn't change the relationship between carriers and their customers at all. It only changes their accounting.
Accounting is a relationship. When the government prevents a specific type of relationship — one consenting adults are regularly choosing to enter — the result is a change in relationships.
Bonus points: In Germany all phones come unlocked, regardless if you get them with a contract or not, and we still get much better discounts on the phones than in America.
Often times the total cost of the 24 month contract ends up being cheaper than buying the phone without a contract, so you essentially end up with a free phone plan
Missing in this thread, courts are not known for their technological literacy. So companies just lie to them. Like, all the time. This isn't meant to withstand consumer scrutiny.
Are you suggesting that there are some lies involved in this? If so, you shouid be specific about which lies you’re referring to. Without the specifics this just seems like FUD.
The idea that locking phones is good for customers is a great example.
isnt lying to court felony?
Yeah but you have to get caught lying. And the courts aren't very literate with tech and economic stuff. You'd basically need to create a memo that says, "lol we lied!"
someone should try to inform relevant courts about technical things, no idea how but those corporations shouldnt be allowed to get away with crime
You'd be interested in groups like the EFF and Amicus briefs.
"Narcissistic domestic abuser claims the exit doors that are locked from both sides are just for the protection of their spouse and its in their best interest to be secure"
Locked phones should just be straight up illegal. It creates so much e-waste and is utterly ridiculous
For my past 3 phones I just bought straight from the manufacturer.
I recommend it and hope phone unlocking gets pushed through despite their whining
I've done this almost from the very beginning (back in the 90s) and always had very small mobile communications costs because I could easilly change providers and plans and even do things like use a local SIM card whilst abroad to avoid roaming costs.
Near monopolies say monopolistic behavior is good for you and does not only benefit them. More bullshit at 11.
You know what the difference between a near monopoly and an actual monopoly is?
In one scenario there’s competition and in the other one there’s not. Basically one’s a monopoly and the other isn’t.
If near monopolies agree to rules sets with one another, they can effectively monopolize. That's why there are regulations in place to prevent that behavior but we're consistently seeing the lack of enforcement of those rules. Sure there are still other telecoms other than these two, but in the US each of the major telecoms are guilty of this sort of behavior, and while phone unlock is allowed they create unnecessary barriers to make it more difficult for consumers to do this, at the benefit of themselves. It's similar malicious compliance to providing an ability to cancel a subscription but making it difficult to do so for consumers so they give up trying.
Is there a technical term for when a company or corporation makes a statement that is a blatant bad faith argument like that?
If none exists, I'd call it "Corporate massturbation". Because they're trying to jerk everyone off.
Edit Here's another one: "Corporate Anal Ostriching." Because they're shoving their heads up their own asses
It's always the same argument. "This objectively bad thing for consumers is actually good for consumers because it allows us to offer a lower price!"
No, dipshits, you are choosing to make your product shittier than necessary and charging customers to undo your shittery. That's not some external thing, it's something that you chose.
What year is it? Locked devices have been illegal in Quebec for, like, ever.
Locked phones are what led me into the rabbit hole of purchasing phones from manufacturer, since the carriers not only lock phones but hobble the OS.
It did mean understanding what was necessary for a phone to qualify for given carriers, but I can tech when I need to, and I tech for my friends when they need it.
In 2024, T Mobile and AT&T (and Verizon) have all demonstrated they do not engage in good faith commerce, and so right now they're being sniveling little shits (quote me please) because the FCC and DoC are escaping regulatory capture.
That is to say, the end users are tired of their shit. Apple and Google, too.
What exactly is “good faith commerce”?
That doesn’t seem to register as a coherent concept, considering good faith has to do with considering the whole of the interaction instead of one’s own side, and business is when each person handles only their own side of the equation.
Seems like an empty phrase to me, unless you can enlighten me.
My T-Mobile phone that's been unlocked and moved over to Google Fi has the T-Mobile image whenever you start up the phone. I'll only buy phones directly from the manufacturer now.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Never buy a phone from your carrier, they will do some evil shit to try and force you to stay
It was probably incompetence more than malice but T-Mobile customer service incorrectly told me multiple times that I was not allowed to pay off my phone balance early to unlock it. I'm on US Mobile now and I'll never go back to postpaid.
If they are good, why then the Europe ended that practice nearly 2 decades ago?
and behold all of the terrible consequences!
That's such bullshit. Locked phones are like google accounts. At the end of the 2 years of owning it supposedly, you end up with all this shit you accumulated and no way to save it anywhere practically.
“T-Mobile claims that with a 60-day unlocking rule, "consumers risk losing access to the benefits of free or heavily subsidized handsets because the proposal would force providers to reduce the line-up of their most compelling handset offers."
I’m I stupid or are they threatening to arbitrarily raise prices for no reason other than spite?
Also wtf is a “handset”?
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"Handset" is obfuscating legalese to refer to a cell phone in a way intending to distance the meaning of the word from the thing that the old and technologically illiterate people who rule on this use every day.
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I'm no fan of their strategy, but cell phone providers have claimed for a long time that filling your phone with unremovable bloatware causes the overall price to decrease. Their argument is most likely that they will have to charge more once the propagators of that bloatware realize that they can no longer force it on people and wedge that as a reason to pay less to carriers.
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The reality is that cell phones are priced based on what people will buy anyway and carriers pocket as much of the money as they can that third parties pay them for their bloatware. Ultimately because of that this ruling hurts their bottom line, but the above reasoning gives plausible deniability in the face of the law as it is interpreted by old technologically illiterate lawmakers
But if we unlock your phones from the start we lose control over you :( pwease
I install alternative firmware, so no sale for you.
It's weird to see T-mobile taking this stance. I switched to them years ago because they were one of the few that supported unlocked phones, and even offered them for sale. Their policies might have changed on this, but I just bought an unlocked phone off Ebay this Summer and all I needed to do was pop my sim card into the new device. Hell I had to specifically install the visual voicemail app because there wasn't any bloatware on the phone when I got it. So I guess I'm not following what their complaint is about?