- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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The whole concept of locked phones should be illegal, pretty sure it is illegal in many countries.
Man, this guy was on a mission and I respect it.
Wonder how he got this done. Hiring a lawyer and setting this up and going to court can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Roach estimated he spent 20 or so hours on the suit, including arranging to have a summons served on Verizon and arguing his case in a court hearing. Roach didn’t get much of a payout considering the amount of time he spent, “but it wasn’t about that,” he said.
He did it himself and the ruling includes compensating for the costs associated with.
Usually the lawsuit itself isn’t considered damages. Maybe in this case he was awarded something, but usually it costs a ton. You get what you sued for awarded, but often nothing else. At 20 hours for self service, which isn’t possible for most people to deal with properly, you’re in for at least that plus court appearance fee… Maybe 500/hr from a lawyer all in starting… 10,000 minimum. This guy got his out of pocket costs covered and probably not all of them, but nothing for time.
That was definitely a man with a bone to pick. Good on him!
I will never buy a phone directly through a carrier instead of the OEM. They are offering me some nice discounts right now, but I have no interest in a phone where I can’t unlock the bootloader. (Or the carrier lock!)
That’s the thing though, I’m pretty sure all of them have an unlocking requirement at some point from the FCC. Depending on how you read the law that should include the bootloader. Verizon especially is screwed on that regard since they can’t “restrict what applications a handset user can use on the device” (paraphrased from their agreement). I’m pretty sure if I bought a Pixel from Verizon and wanted to use GrapheneOS on it, their bootloader lock is preventing that and they’re in violation of the terms of the agreement.
If we had a more favorable FCC it would be trivial to start a class action over that could literally include most Verizon customers (and second hand device buyers) since they made that agreement with the FCC. The damages would probably be $50-100 (time and effort of trying to get Verizon to do their fucking job) per device up to the cost of devices (they’re not fit for purpose). Like either way that’s either a substantial blow up to a death sentence for them.
I don’t think I’ve had a locked phone since around 2012.
I’m guessing people still get them because they need financing? Seems like a poor choice most of the time.
Sometimes you can get a really good trade in deal. Just pay it off immediately and it will be unlocked, then you’ll usually get bill credits for 2 years. You’ll have to stay with that carrier for 2 years if you want the full discount but every month is you saving off of the full retail price, so as long as you plan to stay a few months anyway you’re still saving.
I remember when carriers not just locked the phones, they also had custom firmwares filled with bloat and customized skins and even locking down features and all that shit. For example, I had a Sony Ericsson K700i and it had a disgustingly customized FW on it, and aside that it was ugly, I could only play MP3 files that I purchased through Vodafone. Sending them via bluetooth (or even with IR) didn’t work, the phone refused to play it back.
(Then of course I found out that Sony Ericssons were pretty moddable phones so I replaced the FW with an original one and that solved all my problems. For some reasons, the fact that I patched the FW with countless of VKP patches and even unlocking it with a patch, didn’t void my warranty so whenever I fucked up the FW beyond my abilities to repair it or simply bricked it, I just sent it to Vodafone and they fixed it.)
And they did this even when Android became a thing. (Though, it was a Vodafone branded phone so… it was sort of OK. (technically it was a Huawei though, also pretty moddable phone))
They still lock down features, as of like maybe 5 yrs ago. Idk about today specifically but I wouldn’t doubt it, if only because most people don’t realize that it’s locking something the OS can do by default.
For example, if you have a major brand phone (smaller brands that don’t have contracts with phone companies are unlikely to have this issue) with OEM OS, on a plan in which you pay separately for the WiFi hotspot feature, even though it’s built into your operating system, hotspot is locked and you can’t access it.
This is even true if you buy your own device, I discovered, and was very very very angry about. Enough that I switched providers, because fuck that nonsense.
One of the best things about iPhone, carriers can’t touch shit on the OS.
I loved firmware modding on pre-smart phones! My first eBay purchase ever (with the help of my parents) was a USB cable for the ridiculously large port on my flip phone. I blew my friends’ minds with my custom text on the front panel
When I left my company, I had to get a new phone. When I talked to the rep, the phone cost was essentially free with a contract.
The offer was that Verizon would pay for the phone over the course of three years.
So it’s not financing so much as it was free with a contract. When I asked why this was, he said that it was due to how the market was. Everyone has a phone at this point so now cell service provides have to compete to keep people. So they are willing to pay for your phone so long as you are locked in with them.
But the contract is more expensive than without phone? Or is it the same?
It was the exact same. the math of this is that verizon makes enough money on the contract that they can pay for a phone within your 3 year contract.
Because a locked loader only really affects an absurdly small percentage of people.
That is a separate issue. This is a lock to prevent use with other service providers,
Which people don’t care about. They were getting a new phone when they switched.
People… don’t care about being able to switch phone carriers while keeping their phone? I think you’re quite mistaken.
Even if few people actually do that, they certainly care about the effect of the resulting competitive pressure on the market.
I can’t understand why people can’t use their devices whatever the way they want, greedy corps.
I work for a telecom.
99% of the time this was because the cost of the phone is built into your plan. There was a serious risk (and still is) of fraud whereby the phone is fraudulently ordered to an address, the phone physically swiped, the customer never pays, and the telecom can’t recover the phone or its costs. More basically, it used to be pretty hard to get money from customers who just stopped paying. You could get a €2000 euro phone for €500, pay that up front, and walk to the local guy with a serial cable who unlocked your phone for €20.
Theres a lot more protections, technological and legal, that have slowed this now, but the profit is still high enough that jumping through hoops like embedding an ally in the contact centre or intercepting couriers is still worth it. Most of our phones are no longer locked to carrier as we just have better ways of dealing with it now, and all we were doing was feeding 20 euro to the guy who also sells vapes and buys gold.
You could get a €2000 euro phone for €500, pay that up front, and walk to the local guy with a serial cable who unlocked your phone for €20.
A world in which telecoms can’t use SIM locking to offer financing on ultra-expensive phones to people who would otherwise be bad credit risks sounds like an improvement to me. Most people who can’t pay cash for a 2000€ phone are better off not buying one at all.
Cool, you live in that world already. Most networks don’t lock phones anymore. Our first question to people who ask for phones to be unlocked is whether they actually tried the new SIM in it yet, as almost none of our phones are sold locked anymore.
As I understand it, the practice remains common in the USA. Verizon, the carrier in the article agreed to limitations, but other carriers routinely finance phones and lock them until they’re paid off.
Sounds pretty based to do that to a carrier ngl
I’m sorry the carriers you deal with are so shit but until mobile data transfer becomes a government utility (and let me tell you, there’s a reason telecoms are scrambling to diversify) they do have to make a profit. In most markets the margins are razor thin and new radio technologies (4G, 5G, 6G) are costing more and returning less.
So when poorly regulated markets let them merge into monopolies, or they cut costs by reducing human customer services, “based, I stole a phone from a shitty company” should hopefully be also followed up by you supporting legislation to make mobile data a government utility.
For reference I work in an EU telecom and our industry is heavily regulated. If software companies or supermarkets were hammered for what they do with the data we “just” transfer, they’d be a lot cleaner too.
But, like, Deutsche Telekom makes a lot of profit ( >10 billion € in 2024). So the margins can’t be that thin?
DT is far more than a network carrier, it’s one of the largest IT services companies in the world. On top of that their largest profits in the mobile sector are from the, eh, less regulated T-Mobile.
Their operating margin is around 12%, way down on last year.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/deutsche-telekom/operating-margin/
A more straightforward telecom example might be Vodafone in the UK who are at -4% this year: providing services cost them money https://companiesmarketcap.com/gbp/vodafone/operating-margin/
Telefonica in Spain are at 1.7% https://companiesmarketcap.com/telefonica/operating-margin/
Orange in France are at 10% https://companiesmarketcap.com/orange/operating-margin/
For comparison outside of the telecoms sector, Google is at 40%
https://companiesmarketcap.com/alphabet-google/operating-margin/
You’re right no one ever thinks of the shareholders smh
The reason they’re cheaper is because the carrier is expecting to keep you locked in their network.
Not worth it IMO. Similar to cheaper phones with loads of preinstalled crap, you’re not getting a discount, you’re signing a deal to be farmed.
I don’t buy very expensive phones, but I try to find ones that are mostly free of crap (not easy), and I’m ready to pay a bit extra for that.
To be fair, this guy was kinda trying to game the system (I read the article).
You can buy an iPhone straight from Apple (he bought the iPhone 16e) and it’s not locked.
This guy went to Verizon, bought a phone from them, and intended to skip out after a month and go to a cheaper MVNO. I don’t disagree with the ruling — he was acting within the rules, and Verizon changed said rules after he signed the paperwork — but this guy doesn’t seem like a saint. I mean, fuck Verizon and all that, no sympathy for Big Red, but this guy was totally taking advantage. Of course, if Verizon makes a deal and he follows the letter of the law, I’m with him, but also, people like this make phone deals worse for the rest of us.
Remember when you could get a flagship smartphone for $200 straight up and you just had to keep service for 2 more years? If you were happy with your carrier it was fine, it wasn’t even new customers only. It was like, once that 2 years is up you’re eligible. Verizon even bumped up my eligibility by 2 months when my phone was boot looping. I told them I needed a new phone, either they had to help me or I would be forced to take my business to another carrier, because I couldn’t just not have a phone for 2 months. They said “you know what, you pay your bill on time, we want your business, what phone do you want?” (Then they tried to talk me out of getting an iPhone, 6s, because my last two phones were Android. I said IDGAF about platform wars, the iPhone 6s is the best phone out right now (this was before the Pixel 1 was even announced! But the same year it came out) and it’s the one I want. Rocked that phone for four years.)
If Verizon wants to sell phones at a loss, that’s their problem. When will corporations take some personal responsibility for their bad decisions?
people like this make phone deals worse for the rest of us.
Verizon can get exactly the same amount out of most customers by either:
- Charging more for the phone and less for the service
- Unbundling the phone financing from the phone service
Everyone who screws over corporations is a saint 😇
Who cares. Verizon received monopolistic advantages. We should take every advantage we are given against corporations.
Freedom ™ at work again.
