Verizon Wastes No Time Switching Device Unlock Policy To 365 Days (droid-life.com) 86
An anonymous reader quotes a report from DroidLife: When the FCC cleared Verizon of its 60-day device unlock policy a week ago, we talked about how the government agency, which is as anti-consumer as it has ever been at the moment, was giving Verizon the power to basically create whatever unlock policy it wanted. We also expected Verizon to make a change to its policies in a hurry and they did not disappoint. Again, the FCC provided them a waiver 7 days ago and they are already starting to update policies.
As of this morning, Verizon has implemented a new device unlock policy across its various prepaid brands and I'd imagine their postpaid policy change is right around the corner. Brands like Visible, Total Wireless, Tracfone, and StraightTalk, all have an updated device unlock policy today that extends to 365 days of paid and active service before they'll free your phone from the Verizon network. Starting January 20, Verizon says that devices purchased from their prepaid brands will only be unlocked upon request after 365 days and if you meet several requirements [...].
What exactly is changing here? Well, if you purchased a device from Verizon's value brands previously, they would automatically unlock them after 60 days. Now, you have to wait 365 days, request the unlock because it doesn't happen automatically, and also have active service. [...] The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would "benefit consumers." How does any of this benefit consumers?
As of this morning, Verizon has implemented a new device unlock policy across its various prepaid brands and I'd imagine their postpaid policy change is right around the corner. Brands like Visible, Total Wireless, Tracfone, and StraightTalk, all have an updated device unlock policy today that extends to 365 days of paid and active service before they'll free your phone from the Verizon network. Starting January 20, Verizon says that devices purchased from their prepaid brands will only be unlocked upon request after 365 days and if you meet several requirements [...].
What exactly is changing here? Well, if you purchased a device from Verizon's value brands previously, they would automatically unlock them after 60 days. Now, you have to wait 365 days, request the unlock because it doesn't happen automatically, and also have active service. [...] The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would "benefit consumers." How does any of this benefit consumers?
Who's the customer? (Score:3, Informative)
The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would "benefit consumers." How does any of this benefit consumers?
If you're asking this, you're not the customer. You're the product.
Re: Who's the customer? (Score:2)
The word "consumer" is a way for the ultra-rich to talk down to a working-class person, as if the ultra-rich think the only purpose of a working-class person is to consume. It is a raw insult.
Re: Who's the customer? (Score:2)
Seriously? Physics is an insult? I don't care how rich or powerful you think "they" are -- nobody can repeal the second law of thermodynamics. The only people who aren't consumers are, by definition, dead. In every respect, exactly the opposite of rich.
Re: Who's the customer? (Score:3)
In the case you arenâ(TM)t paying for the product I could agree. When you are paying for the product, then itâ(TM)s simply double or triple dipping on their side.
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When the product is a $30 Android phone, they definitely want you to believe they are losing money on it with a 60 day unlock policy. But given how slow those phones are I really don't know how much they could be losing.
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When the product is a $30 Android phone, they definitely want you to believe they are losing money on it with a 60 day unlock policy. But given how slow those phones are I really don't know how much they could be losing.
They could simply do like other places do: make it a pay to own, where each month simply pays off the phone some more. If you cancel before you have paid off your phone, then you'd have to pay the difference.
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The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would "benefit consumers." How does any of this benefit consumers?
If you're asking this, you're not the customer. You're the product.
Then perhaps we should define who (or what) the actual consumer is. And then tax and fine appropriately.
After all, I'm just a product now. Not like I should be treated and burdened as some entity that matters.
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the FFC's logic was that this would allow carriers to lower prices for locked-in customers.
I'm sure we saw a lot of price drops yesterday to coincide with the lock-in extension, right? /s
If the FCC actually was doing it's job, they would a) estimate the drop in price extended lock in would cause ($0), estimate the value an unlocked phone poses to the average costumer (>$0) and act accordingly. But we're not in that timeline.
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Except that while they are selling discounted/subsidized phones, those phones are still not free (except maybe some low end ones). Also, if the customer switches carriers, the new carrier usually has to pay the balance that is owed to the existing one, before putting the customer on a new plan
That said, nowadays, I just buy an unlocked phone separately, and then get plans for it. Also, I don't look for top of the line, and in fact, deliberately avoid versions above a certain number, which is where it ha
Re: Who's the customer? (Score:2)
Verizon is the customer/consumer of government policy, paid for by sinfully legal transfers of wealth.
Obligatory (Score:1)
Freshly made for this story https://imgflip.com/i/ahy6ba [imgflip.com]
I left years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
I always buy my devices outright and bring them to the carrier, having learned the hard way decades ago that purchasing a device from the carrier is always a bad deal in the long run.
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What is funny is I use Verizon's own MVNO, pay annually and get the same exact service (this may not be true for you big city dwellers). My annual bill for 2 phones is exactly 3 months of service if I was still on my verizon plan.
It's crazy.
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purchasing a device from the carrier is always a bad deal in the long run
With Verizon, I haven't had to buy a new phone in a decade.
What's even more interesting is that this time Verizon let me keep my old "trade-in" phone that got me that deal in the first place.
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With Verizon, I haven't had to buy a new phone in a decade.
You may not have bought it, but you certainly have paid for it - probably a lot more over the last 10 years than if you had bought something out of pocket. Verizon isn't offering you a phone "for free" out of the goodness of their hearts - they're doing it to make a profit.
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I don't know where that profit is coming from.
I had prepaid phones for years in the 2000s and their service payments were designed to waste my money. I used prepaid phones to play with new phone technology before 4G LTE finally came out.
Since the 2010s I have had great experience with postpaid plans, free phones, no advertisements on my phones, reasonable service plan costs.
Am I the product? How?
I just don't get the hate.
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>> great experience with postpaid plans, free phones, no advertisements on my phones, reasonable service plan costs.
You would get the same 'great' experience these days with a much cheaper prepaid plan, and buy a used-but-like-new unlocked phone outright on Ebay for a large discount.
I just checked Verizon, single-line costs start at $65/month with autopay. You get the exact same network access and service with a prepaid plan on Visible for about $25/month.
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It's the expiration dates on the prepaid plans that screwed us over. Tracfone's 1-year plan makes it easier nowadays.
Re: I left years ago (Score:2)
"I had prepaid phones for years in the 2000s and their service payments were designed to waste my money"
Maybe they were then. I have prepaid Verizon, I signed up a while ago so I pay $35/mo with around a dozen gigs of Internet, which is plenty since I don't stream to my phone. My lady has a TracFone, it's a moto stylus which is fairly nice for the money, and she pays about $20/mo and that's not grandfathered or anything like my plan, it's just what it normally costs.
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I need the unlimited streaming. It's the expiration dates on the prepaid plans that screwed us over. Tracfone's 1-year plan makes it easier, and I do use that.
And this is WHY.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, no lock in. I've been doing this for 10 years.
Buy full price, then (Score:4, Insightful)
>"if you purchased a device from Verizon's value brands previously, they would automatically unlock them after 60 days. Now, you have to wait 365 days, request the unlock because it doesn't happen automatically, and also have active service. "
I must be missing something... If you choose to not outright fully buy a phone, but sign an agreement for a heavily discounted/subsidized phone, contingent on having service for X months or whatever, why should Verizon unlock it if the terms are not met? If you want the freedom to do what you want, then fully buy your own unlocked phone, right?
I do agree it should be automatic once the agreement is met, however.
Re:Buy full price, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you "bought the device on credit" rather than "renting the device", so the device is still yours to do with as you please.
Paying for service and using the phone with the service are two different things. You might want to use the phone with other services as well, especially if you travel.
It's none of their business what you do with the phone so long as you continue paying off the loan. If you don't pay off the loan as agreed then that's a breach of contract and they will chase you for that. The device being locked doesn't take the place of the contract, it's just an extra totally pointless burden on the customer.
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>"Because you "bought the device on credit" rather than "renting the device", so the device is still yours to do with as you please."
Yes and no. Depends on the contract and the way it is worded.
>"The device being locked doesn't take the place of the contract, it's just an extra totally pointless burden on the customer."
The phone company is using the locking as a type of collateral to help assure the customer doesn't just stop paying on their obligation and move that phone, which is not "fully" theirs
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Lots of people want to use phones with other simcards, especially when travelling...
Someone who's going to stop paying for service is still going to do that regardless of wether the phone is locked or not.
A GPS tracker on a car does not prevent legitimate usage of the car unless you were limiting it to specific roads or areas, which would be entirely unreasonable.
Locking the phone does absolutely nothing to prevent someone from defaulting on the contract terms. What it does do is coerce them into buying a m
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Note that in many countries locking handsets is explicitly illegal because it is nothing but harmful to consumers.
The idea that it prevents people from reneging on their contract terms is a flat out lie, there are already well established laws and processes for breaches of contract.
It's SOLELY to squeeze more money from customers.
Re: Buy full price, then (Score:2)
"Paying for service and using the phone with the service are two different things."
Yes, and paying off the phone so that you own it is still a third thing. If the contact is structured such that you haven't paid off the phone until the contract is complete, then they are from one fairly reasonable point of view justified in not unlocking it until then.
I don't like such "deals" so I buy my own phones outright from someone else. I never pay more than $250 and the phones have all been fine.
Re:Buy full price, then (Score:5, Informative)
You are missing some important details here that the original post excludes for some reason. These unlock requirements were imposed on Verizon as part of a deal in 2007 that gave Verizon an exclusive license to use the 700mhz C-Block spectrum nation wide. Previously the 700mhz band was used for the upper section of the TV broadcast spectrum, and parts of it were for free public use and emergency services. Because the 700mhz band has very good range and building penetration capabilities, Verizon agreed to these requirements in order to gain exclusive access to use it. Personally, I don't think the FCC should have caved to Verzion here, the 60 day mandate was the cost of the advantage that Verizon gained with the C-Block spectrum.
Re:Buy full price, then (Score:4, Interesting)
why should Verizon unlock it if the terms are not met?
That's how it works in civilized countries. I have a subsidized phone that I can use with a foreign SIM card when I travel. I still have to pay my phone. I'd have to pay it even if it stops working.
There is no valid reason for SIM locks. Just like if you lease a car from a dealer, you can still chose to fill it with gas from any provider. Are you suggesting it would be OK to lock it down to "Toyota gas" until it's fully paid for?
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Shhh... you will give them ideas!
Here in the UK, we do not have locking. I bought a Samsung phone on contract, and shortly after bought an Oppo phone. I swapped the sim cards between them because it suits my use patterns better. No problems here. In the past, I have sometimes swapped phones with my partner, both keeping our sims, because one of us wants an upgrade when the other is due for one, but is happy w
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The car market is more competitive than the cell phone carrier market.
In a truly competitive market, there wouldn't be any SIM-locking. Because developing that feature cost money, and a carrier using it would need to pass the bill to customers, who would all flee to the competition and refuse to buy lesser phone for the same price or higher.
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Because it isn't a heavily subsidized phone? There's no such thing any more. You generally have a contract that requires you pay enough either by treating it as a loan and/or by paying absurdly high plan prices with an absurdly high charge for ending your contract early.
Regardless of how they've done it, in all cases you end up paying for your phone outright, often several times over. So, no, unless your post is the usual naive libertarian "Nothing is more moral than a contract, and a party has the right to
Never buy from the phone company (Score:2)
If you can't buy your phone direct, pick a different phone. I buy a new phone every few years, directly from apple. I pay cash. If I wanted android I'd do the same.
If I couldn't afford that phone, I'd pick a cheaper one.
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The idea that financing a phone is almost the same term as financing a car (24 months!) is crazy.
Easy fix (Score:2)
Don't "finance" your phone with your carrier. Buy whatever UNLOCKED phone you want/need and dispense with vendor lock from the beginning.
All the wireless carriers are slavishly trying to retain subscribers and avoid customer churn so the outcome was inevitable once the rules were relaxed.
Best,
Canada Proves It Works (Score:5, Informative)
Canada banned the sale of locked mobile phones in 2017. Since then, every phone sold in the country has been unlocked.
Did financing phones go away and make phones more expensive? No.
Carriers still finance phones, and tie them to plans, it is just decoupled from the device so while you may be paying off the device for 3 years, you can decide to sell it and/or move carriers whenever you want, by paying off the remaining balance.
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The carrier generally isn't even worried that you'll abscond with the financed phone. The manufacturer often gives them a fat rebate to offset that cost. They are almost entirely focused on retaining the ongoing service fees and subscriber count. THAT is a critical metric for their leadership and "the street".
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Yes but this is always used as a red herring in the argument. Carriers say "if we are forced to sell unlocked it will make phones unaffordable" - my point is, this is a false narrative.
Privilege (Score:1, Insightful)
This benefits no one but Verizon. This is explicitly anti-consumer.
Re:Privilege (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if you can't afford to buy a phone in cash, buying it on credit is a terrible idea as well. Buy a cheaper phone.
This is true with cars as well. Don't lease a BMW, buy a used Toyota.
But if you must use credit then I think Verizon should be issuing you a line of credit, not some in-between thing that acts like credit, but is tied to your service. Of course that would mean interest rates.
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I've bought every single car I own in cash. I then take what would be a car payment and put it in a money market fund every month. The exception to this is my wife's Mazda which we bought new at 0% 3 years ago. I was going to pay cash, but they offered us 0% and when someone gives you a free loan and money market fund rates are 4% you take it. 36 months later that can is also paid off, every month we make a 'car payment' to the money market fund.
I'm currently thinking about buying a slightly used or new GMC
Re:Privilege (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Privilege (Score:4, Informative)
Not everybody has the money to do that.
Typical phone bills are around $100 somehow, which I don't understand because I pay $35/mo for Verizon prepay. So get a $200 phone (Moto has several which are more than adequate) and get prepaid service. It's only about one month's contract additional to get started.
(VZ is terrible but all my other options here are also terrible, because I live in the sticks.)
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Typical phone bills are around $100 somehow
It blows my mind that people will throw money at Verizon directly when there are so many MNVOs out there, and with how easy it is to switch these days. Hell, I was able to get a new phone, access to Verizon's network, and home internet service for $60/month.
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Which MVNOs should I look at which use their network, which is the best one in this area? Not that this is saying much. I currently pay $35/mo and I have about 11GB of internet use, which is more than I actually need given that I don't stream video on my phone.
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Re: Privilege (Score:2)
I have the same feeling, but thank you very much for your reply anyway.
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Re:Privilege (Score:4, Interesting)
Phones start from $100, new. If you can't afford that you have no business entering some tens of dollars per month (if not close to $100) multi-year contract to finance your phone.
And yes, I know well what's the experience with a $100 phone, I have a very close relative with a Samsung A13. Yes, it takes 5 minutes to boot (well, until it's fully up) if you need to restart it, it doesn't have a glass back and it can't compete with the sun if you want to watch videos at the beach. But that's about it, otherwise is fully usable and FULLY USED, beyond belief - it has installed every shopping app and messaging app you can think of, some TWICE (once in the normal profile and once in the "work" profile, just to be able to work with two different accounts at the same time). And on top of it Syncthing running twice (once in each profile) to grab the media from both sides.
For many things it's even better than flagships. It has a large more than full-HD screen, a big battery that's even better because of the weak CPU, it is dual-SIM PLUS microSD (yes, 3 slots), headphone jack and a good not-in-screen fingerprint sensor that works instantly and reliably. It's 3-4 years old and it'll hang on for 3 more I bet.
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If you can't afford to buy a house, you have no business entering some thousands of dollars per month multi-year contract to finance your house.
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Slippery slope much? What else should you buy in a multi-year contract just because it might make sense to buy a house? Full tank of gas? A loaf of bread?
And YES, the amount DOES matter. If you could buy a double-digit number of houses from a monthly salary (starting from minimum wage!), YES, it would be just as dumb to enter a two years contract to pay for it!
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"What else should you buy in a multi-year contract"
By definition: If you can derive benefit over the financing period that exceeds whatever else you could have done with the cost of financing, you finance it. That's pretty basic. You yourself acknowledge that in your second paragraph.
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I get it. I've been poor as hell before, and the condescending "just quit spending money" absolutely grates on me because of it. Being poor sucks, climbing out of being poor sucks worse, and someone who's never actually done it will never sympathize. But that do
Re:Privilege (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of these people have no internet or laptop and getting a smartphone is their critical devices for email, job hunting, etc. I don't think people should get things they can't afford, but to some this is a critical device that serves a lot of purpose and a dumb phone isn't capable of much for many people.
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"Phones start from $100, new. If you can't afford that you have no business entering some tens of dollars per month (if not close to $100) multi-year contract to finance your phone."
Tell us more about how you paid cash up front for your house.
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I love all the folks that are "just buy the phone outright, unlocked, then this isn't a problem". Not everybody has the money to do that. So, you're saying that poor people should get screwed?
Poor people SHOULDN'T get screwed. They SHOULDN'T finance $1000 phones on 2 years. If you can't afford a $1000 purchase outright, you can't afford that phone.
Still, SIM locking should be banned. It works just fine in Canada.
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Most of the "credit" is lease-to-own. So, no. They don't own the phone that they've "purchased on credit", they're renting their phone. A lot of times the rental payments are put on the credit card, so double whammy on the indebtedness. Anyways, my point is that unless you purchase outright, the prepaid phone is not yours.
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I don't disagree that this is anti-consumer. That said, if you're signing up for a Verizon plan, you'll be paying in a month what a low end unlocked phone costs. Hell, you can buy a fairly nice Motorola for around 2-3 months of Verizon service.
I'm not sure that everyone here is arguing this from the point of view of "The law is just! Verizon should do whatever they want!" anyway, I think many think they're being "helpful" and others are advocating it as a "Stick it to the man" thing. Note how many of the sa
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You can get a decent phone for about $150. You can get a decent plan for about $25 a month.
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Most of the complainers about locked phones are those that buy the plan, get the phone, keep the plan for the minimum, then want to keep the phone but dump the carrier and go to a bring-your-own-phone plan. They had no original good intentions to the company, why should the company do anything different?
Verizon did buy nearly all its prepaid competitors (Score:2)
Verizon did buy nearly all its prepaid competitors a few years ago, though, so the unlock policy is significantly less meaningful now.
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No they didn't, there's a shit ton of prepaid companies around that compete with Verizon and aren't owned by them. Did you mean "Prepaid carriers that were its customers" maybe? As in "prepaid companies that use Verizon as their backbone"? Those weren't ever competitors per-se.
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Verizon did buy MVNOs (prepaid mobile phone companies) that did not use their network, TracFone being a prime example.
Verizon has since converted TracFone to to Verizon's network. It previously used all the big three networks.
God save us from Slashdot phone advice (Score:2)
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This is always a good one. The slashdot review for the iPod. https://slashdot.org/story/01/... [slashdot.org]
Verizon will not unlock ever (Score:3)
That has been my experience. Verizon stores refuse to help. Verizon customer service refuses to help.
My parents used Verizon. When my father died, they would not let my mother cancel his plan.
Verizon is overprices and horrible in every way.
Unlocked phones are still a thing. (Score:2)
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I can go to the local BestBuy and pick one up, I am shocked they ever even managed to get a carrier to unlock any phone they provided.
Unlocked phones have almost always been a thing. But if one feels that they absolutely need the latest iPhone 30 super max pro, it is not going to be cheap.
This is why we can't have nice things (Score:2)
Locking of the phone (and IMEI banning for phones not completing their payments) is at least partially a response to a real issue. Criminals hire mules to go into stores and signup for and pay for the phone using a stolen credit cards. It may easily take more then 60 days for the CC owner to notice the charge, and the dispute process to complete, and early unlocking allows the criminal to sell the phone as unlocked for all carriers (which means higher profit for the criminal). Sure, eventually, the phon
You asked for it (Score:2)
This is the FCC you voted for, folks. Enjoy!
As someone who has been in Europe and India (Score:2)
Why are you Americans still buying locked phones, when you can every phone unlocked all over the world?
\o/ (Score:1)
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/new... [nbcnewyork.com]
Dont be greedy (Score:2)