• ramble81@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    If this goes through you won’t see any more subsidized planes without a locked in contract, or installment plans you’ll still be on the hook for. Not a bad thing, just don’t think there’s much merit in this unless you really have to jump. The original phone company will still get their money.

    • shortwavesurferOPM
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      5 months ago

      Personally, I stopped buying locked devices back in 2016 when I started using MVNOs.

  • j4k3@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Ban orphan kernels to stop all theft of ownership. The carrier is irrelevant. The control comes directly from the binary hardware support modules for the Linux kernel on the device. If that source code was merged into the kernel, your device would work for decades. Sure, you may not want to use them forever, bit all your old hardware would still have uses elsewhere and a real second hand market instead of miscellaneous junk drawer nostalgia trinkets.

  • adlr@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Just want to note that this effectively doesn’t apply to Verizon because they already have such a rule, which was imposed over a decade ago as a condition of the 700MHz spectrum.

    This means we already know such a rule works for carriers and we can apply it to the others.

    • shortwavesurferOPM
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      5 months ago

      Actually, the original Band 13 700 megahertz agreement was that all Verizon phones would be unlocked from day zero. And they recently got a waiver from the FCC to increase it to 60 days. So, for Verizon, this would change nothing at all. For AT&T and T Mobile, though, this would be a major difference.

    • shortwavesurferOPM
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      5 months ago

      They may very well decide that it’s better to upgrade less because they’ll actually have to pay the real price of the phone. That’s a very good point.

  • PsyDoctah9Jah@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    “Device locks” limit device functionality and should go away. The only obligation should be financial, not restrictive.

    The amount of resources and time wasted on micromanaging device locks is a revenue killer… get rid of the customer pain point, eliminate this as a reason to contact, the money you save from this sure outweighs the money wasted policing this ridiculous policy. Any device sold should be compatible with any major carrier… let’s make them compete for our business!!!