14 ms·

You don't need a metaphor. You can use a real life situation: "I want to go to Europe" You can't do that next week. Well, you can, but you won't be able to

• Spooky23 14y ago
  Is it illegal to unlock your phone in France?
  • adorable 14y ago
    No it's not. Carriers are required to help their clients whenever they want to unlock their phone.
  • saurik 14y ago
    If you are asking "why can't I just go to France and do it there", it is generally illegal [edit: my knowledge of this situation for end users--as opposed to those distributing tools--is apparently somewhat flawed; read the responses to this comment] to knowingly do something illegal in the US while traveling in another country so as to evade US law, so if you intend to return to the US you are still somewhat screwed. (Also, FWIW, many of the core people who do iPhone unlocking research are in the US, such as planetbeing and MuscleNerd.) [edit: The main reason I left this comment was that the other person responding didn't directly address that Spooky23's question was more about why the US citizen can't just wait to unlock their phone until they arrive in France, rather than doing it before the leave. Maybe someone else who sees this, maybe someone who has experience dealing with international travel, can comment on why that is or is not sufficient, given that the extra-territorial illegality argument that I was making is flawed. Is it really that simple? ;P]
    • nnnnni 14y ago
      While I would believe you over many other people because of who you are and what you do, there's something about your statement that doesn't feel quite right. Does that mean that if someone from the US that's under 21 travels to a country where the drinking age is lower (or non-existent?), legally drinking alcohol there would be illegal?
      • _delirium 14y ago
        There's a long whitepaper on the subject here, but U.S. laws by default don't have extraterritorial application: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/94-166.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/94-166.pdf Some laws are explicitly applied extraterritorially; for example, the U.S. has in recent years been prosecuting Americans who travel to other countries to pay for sex with minors, even if legal in the destination country. Drinking when under 21 isn't in that category, though. I have no idea if jailbreaking a phone is. Although, even without extraterritorial application, there might be some kind of U.S. contract violation if the person returns to the U.S. and continues to use the phone.
        • saurik 14y ago
          Interesting! Given that the US has even been attempting to extradite people who aren't even US citizens on DMCA matters (although not with entire success) I am not certain if the powers that be entirely agree on where their rights are (nor arguably will anyone know until they conclusively win or lose such a case).
          • _delirium 14y ago
            Internet-related stuff uses a different theory I think, that someone making stuff available over the internet to Americans is basically acting in the U.S. for the purposes of jurisdiction. Same way people who've never been to the UK get sued under UK libel law, because someone in the UK read their article on the internet. The internet makes a big mess of jurisdiction...
        • 14y ago
• __--__ 14y ago
  Does this actually work, though? I was under the impression that most phones sold in the US have incompatible GSM frequencies to those sold in Europe.
  • baby 14y ago
    I don't know if this help but I couldn't get a plan at some companies in Canada because my french phone had different frequencies.
    • balabaster 14y ago
      In Europe where I grew up, we use 900/1800MHz - my original GSM phone wouldn't work in the States when I visited. I had to wait quite a while for the first tri-band phone to come out before I could get one that would work in Canada where I now live where we predominantly use 850/1900. Interestingly 1900 is the predominant band in Canada with 850 being a "backup", but in the U.S. it's determined by regulatory requirements of the location. A quad-band "world phone" (that supports 850/900/1800/1900) will work in _most_ places (some exceptions) in the world that support GSM. There are some countries that use some obscure bands - Benelux, Russia etc. use 450MHz. It gets a little more complicated when you get to UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA... but Wikipedia explains it all quite nicely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands So your iPhone will work everywhere - at least everywhere that uses at least one of the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies... if it's unlocked.
      • Sami_Lehtinen 14y ago
        You forgot 2100MHz 3g.
        • balabaster 14y ago
          2100 MHz 3G/4G are HSDPA/LTE so your phone needs to support HSDPA/LTE as well as being GSM... and then you also get 2100 MHz LTE on CDMA... On 2G, 2100MHz was only on CDMA, which most of the world (still) doesn't support... so if you've got a CDMA phone and are travelling anywhere outside of a very limited list of some 45 countries (North/Central/South America, Caribbean, Far East), you're SOL. So like I said UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA gets more complicated, because then you're not just talking GSM or CDMA... your phone needs to talk UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA as well as having the correct frequencies and GSM or CDMA.
• bhups 14y ago
  Yes, but if you foresee that you would need to travel, couldn't you just buy an unlocked phone? (I normally just buy an entirely different phone, a cheap Nokia brick handset, for travel use). This law doesn't prevent people from using unlocked phones, it prevents people from taking advantage of the carrier subsidy. Carriers agreed to give you a shiny new smartphone for a massively subsidized prize in return for you being locked to their network. It seems rather exploitative to take advantage of this quid pro quo by breaking free from that agreement. All this law seems to do is to prevent people from taking without giving.
  • jasonkester 14y ago
    But you're not breaking your agreement. You're still paying your monthly bill like a good customer. You're just replacing the SIM for a couple weeks. You could certainly achieve the same result by buying a second phone just for traveling. But you already have a phone. In the rest of the world (and in the US until tomorrow), that's all the phones you need.
    • therandomguy 14y ago
      You are not paying the roaming charges if you unlock your phone. Thus breaking your agreement.
      • arkem 14y ago
        You're also not using their service. Is turning your phone off and leaving it in a drawer for a month also breaking the agreement?
        • therandomguy 14y ago
          If you turn off the phone and leave it in a drawer you will pay the minimum fees. The phone companies are aiming for the maximum. That is having you go over the limits, pay roaming etc. By letting you unlock the phone it opens the door for always receiving only the minimum. This is what they want to avoid.
• rdouble 14y ago
  iPhone 5 on Verizon is not locked and you can do this if you desire. I'm not sure about other phones.
  • newishuser 14y ago
    Verizon phones don't use sim cards.
    • shmerl 14y ago
      Even LTE ones?
    • meepmorp 14y ago
      Actually, the iPhone 5 on verizon does use a SIM card. When I asked the sales person about it, they said it was for LTE. That said, the slot is unlocked on the verizon model, so you can pop another micro SIM in there for travel use.
    • rdouble 14y ago
      It requires a sim cutter. I am not sure if anyone in Europe offers pre-paid nano sims, but I'll find out in a few months. http://www.zdnet.com/nano-sim-redux-using-the-iphone-5-in-the-uk-7000005689/ http://www.zdnet.com/nano-sim-redux-using-the-iphone-5-in-th...
      • thisone 14y ago
        looks like 3 does http://store.three.co.uk/SIM_Only/Mobile_Broadband_iPad_Nano_SIM http://store.three.co.uk/SIM_Only/Mobile_Broadband_iPad_Nano... when the smaller iPhone sims came out a couple years back there was a backlog on pay and go for a few months as they were reserved for their iPhone contract customers, same will happen with these tiny sims. (I know that says iPad, so I'm extrapolating) edit: Yes they have Pay and Go nano for iPhone 5 as well: http://store.three.co.uk/view/searchSimOnly?tariff=112 http://store.three.co.uk/view/searchSimOnly?tariff=112
      • andybak 14y ago
        Cutting a normal SIM to size isn't that hard - or buy a SIM punch in advance to do it an a fail-safe way.
• jimktrains2 14y ago
  Exactly why I got my Dinc2 on VZW unlocked. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Ecuador (beautiful country, btw) and I bought a Claro SIM in a store on the street and was able to call and text home (though Skype was cheaper when in the hotels, being able to call around the country and home if need-be was what I wanted). Ditto in India over Christmas. I bought a Vodafone card and was able to call home, or would have if my phone wasn't being stupid (yay! for unstable roms!)
• pasbesoin 14y ago
  From some years ago, in pre-smart phone days, stories from Europe would be somewhat transfixing. 'When I became unhappy with my current provider / traveled to another country / didn't want a monthly plan and fixed fee, I simply bought a different SIM and popped it in.' You mean, you changed your cell service by changing the 'memory card'? You didn't have to pay $40/month (or equivalent) for 90 minutes of phone calls? You're not locked into a 2 year contract? You don't get caught and screwed over with roaming fees (remember those)? (Different SIM card for the different country.) THEY DON'T $0.10, $0.20, WHATEVER PER TEXT MESSAGE? I'm probably forgetting many of the other "astonishing" differences. All you needed to do was have an "average" U.S. person talk for 2 minutes with an "average" European about cell phone use, and the American was ready for a change. P.S. I realize this is sarcastic, but I suppose this change will end up getting someone charged with a felony for "hacking", at the DOJ's or other law enforcement organization's convenience.
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  • StavrosK 14y ago
    Why some years ago? That's what we do even today. I don't think our iPhones are locked, Androids definitely aren't (Greece).
    • pasbesoin 14y ago
      I've been cut off in my hermit cave. Also, alternatives have been starting to catch on, here. Such as pre-paid plans that offer significant discounts. Also FaceTime, Skype, and whatever else (although these eat into often stingy data quotas). Many in the U.S. still have little or no clue. But I don't think it's quite as bad as before; also, someone "technically" "gaming" the system isn't as astonishing as it used to be. Or so it seems, from my cave. Mostly, I'm just more familiar with reactions back at that time.
      • graeme 14y ago
        You can buy unlocked iPhones at apple stores in Canada. I get unlimited minutes and text with chatr. That comes with free long distance, call display, voicemail etc. everything except picture messaging or data. Chatr doesn't sell microsims. So at the mall, there is a kiosk that will legally cut the chatr sim for $10. Chatr encourages this. This plan works even if I travel to another city, as long as its a major center. No contract. They're actually illegal in Quebec. Instead, companies offer the same agreements to consumers, and conscmersd just have to pay back part of the phone price if they leave early. If you have a discounted agreement that doesnt include a subsidy, you can leave anytime you want.
• lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Thank you for the clearest explanation so far - I never knew what unlocking was (and never cared so far). Now I kind of care. But I would oppose making it illegal.
• deltasquared 14y ago
  Yeah, I have switched out SIM cards on my travels. When I Had a locked phone, I would keep it on Airplane mode for the duration of my trip.
• bradly 14y ago
  > "I want to go to Europe" > You can't do that next week. Well, you can, but you won't be able to use your phone there without paying ridiculous roaming and data charges. Would it be legal for me to unlock the phone once I land in Europe? Would it also be legal for me to return to the U.S. with said phone that I unlocked over seas?
  • dalore 14y ago
    In a way you circumvented their copyright so I guess yes you would be in trouble when you returned. If people are actually going to get into trouble about it.
• jzwinck 14y ago
  You probably can't use your phone for travel if you have Sprint or Verizon anyway, since they don't use the same cellular standards as most of the world. And if you have a typical "tri-band" phone from another carrier you may be unable to use 3G data. It is unfortunately complicated in ways it does not need to be. And don't even get me started on the wonders of APNs when travelling...many customer service folks don't know how to set up data on foreign phones anyway. It should all be automatic.
• awongh 14y ago
  Not sure that's a great example either- a new SIM gives you a new (local) phone number. If I'm only overseas for a week (or other short period), and especially if it's for business, it's a whole lot more convenient for me to pay exorbitant roaming fees and still get phone service to my normal number. Yes, it's cheaper to buy a new sim, and locals can call you a little easier, but in some cases it's not worth it. The problem that the OP states is that nowadays there doesn't seem to be a lot of real-world practical examples where one would want or need to unlock their phone....
  • justincormack 14y ago
    When you want to change carrier, or sell your phone. If you use VoIP you can keep your number even if you switch to a temporary SIM while travelling. Or just tell people to use Skype etc.
  • andybak 14y ago
    I'm in Thailand for the next couple of weeks and roaming data costs about $8/megabyte. It's too hard to predict and control data usage when you're used to free data. If I forget one background app or get one setting wrong I could end up with hundreds of dollars in charges. So no - it's not easier to pay roaming charges. It means I can't trust any app unless I fully understand how it uses data. Swapping out the SIM is the only reasonable option. Of course - the real solution would be sane roaming data charges. To get normal usage out of my smartphone
• b0o 14y ago
  Well, MOST of the world has cheap (below $10 USD) prepaid plans like europe, I think japan is an exception where "cheap" calls using prepaid sim cards is very difficult (nearly impossible) to get because the three most popular providers docomo, au, Softbank all have very steep prices for just calls. The situation is even worse for prepaid data plans (~$25/mb using Softbank, insane. Texts were also $2.50/text, so that's not an option either). Their reasoning is to prevent criminals from buying burners. And if your phone is locked then you would have no choice but to rent their phones for about $50/week or $200/month, to put it into a monthly contract perspective. There are a few exceptions such as buying from other networks besides the big three but those networks don't work in non-metropolitan areas (i.e. outside of tokyo, kyoto, or most major cities), and that's when you might need your phone the most, especially if you can't speak Japanese. The loopholes: using wifi to gvoice call internationally at $0.11/min in Japan, or payphones, because receiving calls is free. I digress, but to explain the situation, I found a store (Mobal) at narita int'l airport that gave free SIM cards where you "pay as you go" at around $2.50/min (the other stores charge ~$1.50/min but you needed to pay $25 flat fee and then a rate of $1.50/min), but I also bought a portable wifi router so that I could make internet calls through gvoice for $0.11/min (or free calls back home in the U.S.) and you can avoid paying them as long as you can make wifi calls (free wifi isn't as common in japan as everyone thinks).