The consumer side of me likes this...the libertarian side of me laments it. Why not just go ahead and force Gilette to make their razor's handles fit Schick blades, or have Macs come pre-installed with Windows too, etc? Maybe not 100% perfect analogies, but you get the drift. It's hard to root for the carriers but I dont see how phone locking is entirely unreasonable, and I struggle to see how it's worthy of legislation that outright bans it.
It's a little bit different, though, because the government is already enforcing spectrum controls. It's not like you can go out and start your own wireless network on in Verizon's band - the government won't allow it.
USA carrier's phone locking is part and parcel of a completely deformed and deceptive marketplace where a people think the new iPhone "costs" $199 and most people decide between a Tmobile phone vs a Sprint phone vs a Verizon phone. I would have expected even a libertarian to see how out of whack the locked phone dominated US marketplace is compared to much freer markets in pretty much the rest of the world.
What is deceptive about the sales process with respect to subsidies? It seems pretty straightforward to me, and anyone who cares enough to ask can find out the details in a matter of seconds.
Hmm... ok. Walk into your local Verizon store, pick up any random phone being offered on contract and ask the following questions:
1) How much of this phone's price is being subsidized?
2) What percentage of my monthly bill is going towards payment on the device subsidy and thus:
3) how many months of service will it take to pay off the phone.
Actually I'd also welcome any online sources for such information for a such information from Verizon or AT&T (the holders of vast majority of mobile phone contracts in the US)
