Got a Cell Phone?

[pcosmar]

DCMA strikes again.
Starting Today, It's Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/now-illegal-unlock-cellphone/story?id=18319518

[tangent4ronpaul]

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[cajuncocoa]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414699,00.asp

[tangent4ronpaul]

Please paste at least the first few para's in the future. This crap happens all the time and stories disappear. If you are not willing to post all of it, please buffer it so when it vanishes, you can cough it up.

-t

[pcosmar]

Page Not Found


Fixed it.


You likely have a cellphone that you bought from a carrier, like AT&T, Verizon or Sprint, and that phone only works on that carrier's cellular and data network -- unless you "unlock" it.

That is a software process that allows the phone to work on other carriers if you put in a new SIM card or want to take the phone to another carrier for service.

If that sounds complicated to you and like something you wouldn't bother with, then today's news won't matter to you. But if that's something you've done before or have thought about doing, then you should know that starting today it is illegal to unlock a subsidized phone or tablet that's bought through a U.S. carrier.

Why now? Starting today, the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress are no longer allowing phone unlocking as an exemption under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

[FrancisMarion]

Of course, the carriers prefer the new rule because it ties your phone to their network. U.S. cellular carriers sell phones at a subsidized or discounted rate with a contract. You pay the network for service on a monthly basis and they give you the phone for a cheaper price than it actually is worth.

I don't believe that for a minute. Anybody in this industry that can substantiate that claim?

P.S. the reporter that wrote that piece needs to go look up the difference between a gift and a sale. :rolleyes:

[BAllen]

Well, if you look in walmart, they are cheaper if you buy them with a carrier. They are absorbing the xtra cost for your contract business. I use a phone card myself. You can pay with cash, so you're name isn't connected to the number. You won't be getting any obnoxious sales calls. My phone only rings when it's someone I know.

[amonasro]

.

I don't believe that for a minute. Anybody in this industry that can substantiate that claim?

P.S. the reporter that wrote that piece needs to go look up the difference between a gift and a sale. :rolleyes:

Yeah that's true. The carriers eat part of the cost for the phone because they make it up over the 2 year contract.

[belian78]

.

I don't believe that for a minute. Anybody in this industry that can substantiate that claim?

P.S. the reporter that wrote that piece needs to go look up the difference between a gift and a sale. :rolleyes:
I work for US Cellular, and that is exactly why you get the phone at the price you do, because you agree to a 2 yr agreement. Now, after the first, we don't force you into another 2 years like other carriers do but you will still get a discount on a phone every 2 years.

[oyarde]

I am not under a contract, it is the same plan and monthly price I picked 16 years ago or so , I think the original contract was a yr.I bought my own phone and switched the card.When I want to disappear , I just take the battery out.

[pcosmar]

I have no Cell Phone, and have no desire for one.
On the odd chance that I may need one, I'll buy a burner and toss it when I am done.

[belian78]

I have no Cell Phone, and have no desire for one.
On the odd chance that I may need one, I'll buy a burner and toss it when I am done.
Unfortunately they are working around the anonymity of throwaways too. They'll add a simcard for a compeltely different region in your packaging, so in order to get the phone to work you have to call and register the simcard. US Cellular and I believe a couple other carriers still offer anonymous prepaid accts, no name or address attached to them, that's the way to go.

[ZENemy]

Here is an up an coming solution

http://www.servalproject.org/about/how-it-works


The Serval Project consists of two systems.

The first is a temporary, self-organising, self-powered mobile network for disaster areas, formed with small phone towers dropped in by air.

The second is a permanent system for remote areas that requires no infrastructure and creates a mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones, and eventually specially designed mobile phones that can operate on other unlicensed frequencies, called Batphone. The two systems can also be combined.

We have developed software which we’ve called Distributed Numbering Architecture (‘DNA’) that allows people in isolated or temporary networks to immediately use their existing phone numbers.

We believe that for a phone network to be useful, you must be able to call people, and have people call you on numbers that they know. This is especially true in disasters. This is the magic of DNA: it allows people to use their existing phone numbers, so that others can call them easily.

[CaptainAmerica]

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/how-to-unlock-cell-phone.htm

For those of you who know nothing about locked vs unlocked phones.

[jclay2]

If that sounds complicated to you and like something you wouldn't bother with, then today's news won't matter to you. But if that's something you've done before or have thought about doing, then you should know that starting today it is illegal to unlock a subsidized phone or tablet that's bought through a U.S. carrier.

Well isn't that nice, taking away freedom from an individual or group is ok so long as it doesn't affect you.

[Ranger29860]

I'm curious about this. If you buy the phone from these carries with the knowledge that they have locked the phone to their service and that is part of the deal then how is it bad to enforce that contract? Admittedly I do not know much about phones since I do not carry one ever after AT&T decided it was cool to keep charging me after I deployed and I had informed them and sent in my orders, to which they ignored and put about 2000 dollars worth of charges on my account.

[oyarde]

I'm curious about this. If you buy the phone from these carries with the knowledge that they have locked the phone to their service and that is part of the deal then how is it bad to enforce that contract? Admittedly I do not know much about phones since I do not carry one ever after AT&T decided it was cool to keep charging me after I deployed and I had informed them and sent in my orders, to which they ignored and put about 2000 dollars worth of charges on my account.

That sounds typical of a phone or sat/cable tv provider.They probably never read your letter.

[presence]

Nope... ditched the cell phone; on that same long list as facebook.

[DamianTV]

.

I don't believe that for a minute. Anybody in this industry that can substantiate that claim?

P.S. the reporter that wrote that piece needs to go look up the difference between a gift and a sale. :rolleyes:

I do. The cost that is eaten by the carriers is offset by the services (read non physical products) that are sold. Unlimited Data and texting and huge monthly bills compounded by minimum of two year contracts and large early cancellation fees.

Want further proof? FREE cell phone when you sign a two year contract. There is a physical product there. Im sure that has some costs associated with it, but they literally give it away for zero cost to the consumer for that product in exchange for huge profits made by services rendered.

[KrokHead]

Sorry I'm on T-Mobile, I didn't hear what you said.

[Natural Citizen]

Ultimately, i think what's going to happen is that with all of the different "services" like social networking apps and really a whole huge list of different services that people use on their phones will be billed accordingly. I don't know how clearly it can be explained but imagine having a new bill based upon merging all of your different services.

Also, one thing about phones and perhaps not relevant to this thread but another poster had mentioned about "other" providers.I assume they meant those prepaid things that the govt is handing out.

I had bought my sisters kid one of these prepaid phones (same carrier that the govt is handing out) and then shortly thereafter found out about this Carrier IQ crap (http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/16/technology/carrier_iq/)that started. For those who were on a contract they had access to the actual phone through a usb and could get to the phones files themselves to remove the vermin. With the prepaid one, the usb was set up in a manner that would not let one do that so one had no idea or means to get rid of the surveilance softare. This was a monumental infrigement because the carrier used it's "IP" privileges to stop you from removing or maybe seeing if you were a target of the software. If you were then you had no way to stop your 4th amendment from becoming peed all over.

I told her mom to ditch it and I'd get her a real smartphone. One that you could at least get inside of via cable if any tyranny was happening in the background.

Sorry to get off topic but this thread just reminded me of that.

[fisharmor]

I'm curious about this. If you buy the phone from these carries with the knowledge that they have locked the phone to their service and that is part of the deal then how is it bad to enforce that contract?

I bought my phone off Craigslist, and I specifically bought a GSM phone for a GSM carrier so I could put a sim card in it and go.
You can use a GSM phone on any other GSM network, because the carrier needs to provide you with the SIM card in order for you to get on the network. That SIM card is what identifies you.

The problem with "just enforcing the contract" is that I have no contract with my carrier for shit regarding my phone. **I** brought the phone into the relationship. I did not acquire it from the carrier.
Therefore the only two things that ought to be getting in the way of me unlocking my phone are jack and shit.

If the rest of you would stop supporting CDMA carriers (Sprint and all the little Sprint piggy-backs like Virgin and Boost) then all this unlocking stuff wouldn't make much of a difference.
The trouble is that CDMA doesn't use SIM cards. Each phone has to be specifically programmed with an identifier for their networks.

The first reason I'm not sure why anyone uses CDMA is because they're taking measures to make it painful for you if something happens to the one phone you have on their network.
With my GSM phone, if I drop it in the toilet or off a roof, if the thing gets destroyed then I'll pull out my SIM card and put it in one of the backup phones I have in a drawer (people will give away old phones for nothing if you're interested, and they still make calls) until I can find an adequate replacement. But the point is I'm making calls again within 5 minutes.
With the CDMA phones you have to talk to the provider and get them to reprogram you a new one. So you're phoneless for a couple days, and potentially on the hook for a lot of money to replace the old one.

The other reason I don't understand why people use CDMA is the reason why all this unlocking stuff is bad news for the carriers. With GSM I have a SIM, and whoever is in possession of that SIM is in possession of my phone. I can get it cancelled if my phone is stolen, but as stated, they don't really care what I put that SIM into.
The CDMA phones present a problem with carriers that don't sell or support certain brands of phone.
If you do some googling you'll see that there are a lot of really complicated tutorials on how to take an iPhone and make it work on Boost Mobile's network.
Most of the time this involves buying another CDMA phone from the network itself for $15 or so, finding the EIN on the phone (which is the unique identifier they use on the network, like the info on a GSM's SIM card, but, again, immutable), and then using a program to put the EIN from your cheap phone into your iPhone, which will then (hopefully) be recognized by Boost as your other phone.

There is actually a cottage industry of people doing this at this point. I keep hearing that it's already technically illegal. And you can be sure, that if you put the EIN from one phone into another, if ever both phones are turned on at the same time, you're going to get contacted by your carrier really freakin' quickly. They can tell that someone's EIN is being duplicated, and they don't like it.

This all begs several questions. Why do they use CDMA when it's so overbearing and controlling? Why would they care what device you're trying to connect to their network? Why would they push for additional restrictions to keep you from trying to connect other devices to their network? Why do they care if you try to use your phone on an overseas network?

I don't know the answer to these. All I know is that if you people would stop patronizing Sprint and other CDMA networks, and started giving your money to the GSM networks, this wouldn't be a problem. They're acting like dicks because when they act like dicks nobody does anything about it.

Switch to a GSM network. Like KrokHead so eloquently put it, you're not going to get the best reception all the time. But so what? Wouldn't you rather not give your money to people who are intentionally being dicks to all of us?

FYI You can still get a 2-line value plan with T-Mobile with unlimited 4g data for around $90 which assumes you're bringing your own phone. And the plans specifically say "Compatible with unlocked GSM devices".
You have choices. Use them.

[opal]

<-- uses a Just5 phone.. only turns it on to make calls.. prepays minutes.