Slightly OT, but as someone who escaped poverty this is the type of volunteering that is super helpful and makes a huge difference. A quick Google search doesn't turn up anything like this in my local area, do you have any pointers on starting/finding a program like this to contribute to?

I really what you are doing, I have been looking for a way to give back now that I am in a financially secure position and that sounds more impactful than just giving money. If you would prefer, I can be contacted at my username at google's email service.

This might be the first positive thing I've ever heard someone say about at&t. Mad props for distributing phones though! If you wrote up even a brief guide as to how to do this and common pitfalls I'd do the same in my area.

T-mobile refused to unlock a phone I bought. A complaint to the FCC got that fixed right away.

There's also huge e-waste and technological regression from shutting down the 2g and 3g networks. I have several perfectly good old phones that are now useless as phones. They were better phones than current ones, because they were smaller and used much less power, through the one weird trick of not containing what we used to call workstation-class processors. I don't understand why they couldn't make the current base stations (they are SDR anyway) serve multiple standards. I had thought that was possible.

Is there a way to get phones to you or information about how to do this myself? I am sure I could find similar programs if I looked but it sounds interesting.

Would you be accepting any phone(s) if shipped to you or do you have a group you would recommend that accepts shipments of phones?

Thank you!

How do they distinguish you from a phone thief? Is there some kind of check with the previous owner?

This is such a nice thing that you’re doing! Bravo and thank you!

Upvoted in recognition of your activity, while "downvoting" the reality you report.

I should also mention that - while not directly accessible to homeless people - today it is quite easy to obtain new Smartphones, probably in bulk, which are quite usable with new version of Android and new apps, albeit not the most snappy, for something like 50 USD apiece (I just searched on AliBaba for example). I know such things can be quite legit technically, since I bought a a 75 USD smartphone individually, 10 years ago; and though it sometimes struggled a bit, it worked just fined. Only stopped using it because I was mugged, which was funny because the guy who took my phone was probably not happy he lifted something this cheap :-)

Anyway, that's an optional for buttressing your collection of used smartphones, to distribute.

How can I financially support you?

[dead]

No it won't, not unless it's specifically addressed in the law.

The EU (or at least most of it) has banned SIM locks a long time ago, but carrier-branded Android phones are still a thing.

In fact, the situation here is even more pernicious, there have been news reports[1] of carriers being able to remotely lock your phone down if you stop paying the bill, or if you buy it used and the first owner stops paying the bill.

[1] Polish https://niebezpiecznik.pl/post/plus-instaluje-cos-na-ksztalt...

I don’t think this will make any difference—SIM unlocking is totally separate from phone firmware

I bought Samsung S21 from some shady reseller because original Samsung store was trying to steal my data by a promotion where I need to give them my bank account number and they will send my 20% of phone price back, then when I returned with phone to home and turned on phone I saw a message saying "this phone is a property of Polkomtel (on of carriers operating in Poland), it will be locked if you stop paying the bills", shady reseller agreed to replace my phone with another one not fucked up by a greedy carrier who is making incomes private (selling expensive phone in subscription model for people with no credit rank, often abusing this subscription model as low rate credit (they are goi g from carrier straight to lombard) and making loses public (they will lock my phone if someone dont pay)

OS and the bundled sleazy apps and injected ad networks are a big positive cost center for american telcos.

>At this point the most important quality of a phone to me is active security updates, so I'll never buy one where a carrier

you have no ideia how little of minority this type of thinking is! :(

I've never heard of this disambiguation. An unlocked cellphone has always meant (1). A rooted or jailbroken phone means (2). For three, why would it make sense for manufactures to advertise a phone with/without a lock screen? It doesn't make sense.

Is there a term for this sort of linguistic conversion? On one hand, it's part of what makes natural languages so powerful--we can use the word language to mean English, Haskell and pheromones. On the other hand, it leads to confusion when we're overly parsimonious with fun words, e.g. plasma.

This confusion is especially annoying when trying to purchase a bootloader unlocked phone on secondary market. I'm not even sure it's possible if you buy through a dealer. By unlocked they exclusively mean carrier unlocked.

I was hoping for unlocked bootloaders - but nope

Verizon in particular. My Pixel 3 is still more than capable hardware-wise, but it's years out of software support. I could get much more use out of it, but the bootloader is locked and Verizon will not unlock it, so it's e-waste.

So don't buy phones from carriers? You can find a cheaper plan without a phone and then add a device you can use on any network, with the manufacturer's software.

That is kind of impossible for the FCC to regulate. If they mandated that, everyone would be able to install any OS on any hardware, notably iphones too. And that won't happen. If anything, FCC is anti software freedom. A lot of bullshit shenanigans that manufacturers pull (wifi whitelists etc.) are to please the FCC.

Cricket once switched network types from CDMA to GSM (or whatever the terms are). That happened a couple months after I paid full price for a cricket-branded Samsung Galaxy S4, and it bricked it. It was no longer usable on cricket. It wasn't usable on any other network, either.

Depending on which phone, it may have actually cost a bit more than what she paid to get an unlocked phone. I always buy unlocked, but Best Buy charges an extra hundred bucks compared to the "activate with your carrier" version!

Cricket phones are generally subsidized

IMO allowing OTA updates to go through through the mobile provider was Android's biggest mistake. Their reputation and platform integrity has been irreparably damaged because of it.

Could she just get a friend using AT&T put their sim in her phone to have it updated?

That’s how it should work. My understanding is that the carriers (probably correctly) assume that there are more people who will buy a cool phone if they don’t think about it as a short term loan – and then keep paying the same price after the phone is paid off. If they had to say “$900 in 24 payments of $50” more people would decide they don’t need the “Pro” model and the carriers would be forced to compete with the banks on financing terms.

There's a growing segment of the American public who thinks contracts are fake so they would probably sign up for a "free" phone, unlock it, sell it, and then insist on breaking the contract with no penalty because they "didn't understand it and it was unfair anyway". It would be the new "Chase ATM glitch".

The point is to lock the user into a contract with the carrier. By binding the phone to there service they make it unlikely that a user will switch providers as that would need a new phone while still paying off the old phone.

That's why they'll offer these phones at low or no interest plans, so they can pull in the $50/month subscription for the years that the phone is being paid off.

That's how it works i EU (or at least the majority of it).

Also, it as it is far easier to buy a phone with an installment plan than to get a cash loan, it's very common to see brand new, unboxed phones sold on the second-hand market. People sell the phone for cash and use the installment plan as an interest-free loan payment.

Yes, but let’s just say you got a 1200 device and only made the first two payments… jump to another carrier and abandon the one with the finance plan. What’s the recourse for the carrier?

There is a reason US cell rates are so high. That reason is because of lock-in.

If they did what you want, rates would fall, as would their profitability.

I expect them to fight this tooth and nail.

That is how it works in Canada now. If you cancel your contract, you have to pay the remaining balance immediately. No fees, just the remainder.

Yes, but the reason they don't do this is because "free phone" sounds more enticing than "$22.95/mo installment plan for 2 years".

I think the manufacturers should do the payment plans. Then carriers can be selected on basis of quality for customer over lock in effect

I just got an idea for the opposite. Buy a phone with three years worth of service together with the phone. Extra features are extra money. 36 months x 40$ per month plus the cost of phone ($600) = $2040. Add discount for loyalty (-$800). Free phone and more.

It’s impractical to “repossess” phones so in practice the carriers wouldn’t be able to stop people from deliberately defaulting on the contract with no repercussions (they can bring it to a different carrier who is indifferent)

most places in the world theres little sim lock, there's mandated number portability, and there are regulations from marking up the price of the phone to artificially make people breaking contract early to pay a lot. ...and there's the usa.

Same in Canada, we got a rare regulator win some time ago, much to the chagrin of our draconian carriers. Number portability too.

You cannot go to a AT&T store to buy a phone and then use it on tmobile’s network. That’s why there is a 60 day delay. For 60 days you pay AT&T for a service contract.