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Ask HN: What was the first cell phone to be carrier locked?
Hey folks,
A reporter from Mother Jones just called me to ask when cell phones first started being locked by carriers/manufacturers.
And I have no idea. I'd guess it was around the introduction of GSM and SIM cards, but not sure. Does anyone here happen to remember?
Sina,
http://fixthedmca.org
- saurik 13y agoI was under the impression that the idea of cell phones being manufactured by companies unrelated to carriers (as in, not under contract by the carrier, although AT&T may seriously have made their own mobile handsets for a while), implementing published (if even still proprietary) specifications, allowing for the ability to move a handset between carriers, would have been a more recent invention than the cell phone. I mean, put it this way: how do you solve the chicken and the egg problem unless you sell them bundled together?
- evv 13y agoExactly. The easiest question to answer is this: Was the first cell phone locked to its infrastructure? I wasn't alive back then but I'd venture to say, "of course", how else could it have existed?
- sinak 13y agoI agree that before standardization, all cell phones were likely effectively locked. Locking isn't built into the GSM standard though, so I wonder if the first interoperable devices were sold with locks. If not, I'm curious as to when the locks were first installed on standardized devices.