It was also much easier to import cheap unlocked phones from abroad when the whole world used at most 4 frequency bands. Now there's several dozen and I don't think even the most expensive flagship phones support all of them.

To paraphrase a common phrase I've seen around here: The "G" in "LTE" stands for "global".

In Norway several of the mobile phone telecom operators sell phones on down payment plans that cost nothing extra compared to buying it cash up front.

It has been like this for several years and it’s great!

You can pay a pretty low monthly down payment over a period of 36 month.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, I don’t even have to enter into any binding contract for any phone plan to buy the phone this way. And even if I did have to do that the most they are allowed to bind me to is 12 months, by law.

Consumer protection laws in my country are fabulous :)

I wouldn’t be surprised if they rip people off on cheaper phones, but for higher end phones the “free” phones are typically exactly the normal price of the phone split over 24 payments. Every time I buy a new phone I compare buying it directly versus via a carrier and it always comes down to which option currently has a promotion or sale I can take advantage of.

> The "free" phones cost significantly more than a full price phone

I buy phones at full price, but in general the free/subsidized versions don't cost more. You just pay over time. For many people, it would even be worth it to pay somewhat more if they don't have the money to pay up front.

One downside though is that you're more likely to upgrade to features you don't need because "it's only an extra $5/6/10 per month". Gotta always consider the total cost.

Is this an option that's available all the time? Back when the Nexus 5 was still new, I tried doing exactly this and took one I just bought to my local Verizon outlet to have it activated on their network. The tech there told me that while the phone DID have the hardware needed to be compatible on Verizon's network, he was "not allowed" to activate it for me unless I bought it directly through them. I've since switched to T-Mobile and never looked back.

That’s what I thought and did this for years. However, the major carriers do offer promotions and incentives that make the phones cheaper, sometimes significantly. e.g. of recent deal from major US carriers: iPhone 16 deal for $16/month for 36 months ($576 total) versus Apple store $699.

it's a lot easier to pay smaller amounts over time than it is to pay a large lump sum, even if it is technically less after x number of years. Delayed gratification etc, but also sometimes folks need a phone and can't put off the purchase until they save up the upfront price. T

Another label I fell for in the US was "lite" cooking oil. The fine print said "light in colour."

The "free" is just advertising and for people habituated to credit, it's a no-brainer. Pun intended.

I suspect that many Americans would struggle to afford to pay for a phone outright. The vast majority live paycheck to paycheck and are already in record amounts of household debt.

Huh? My Pixel 9 was free (late 2024) with a 20€/month 2 year contract that includes unlimited calls, SMS, and 5 gigs of 5G data. 480€ when the cheapest full price was over 500 (and then wouldn’t include the data or calls). Certainly not an American thing, and certainly not "significantly more".

My monthly plan payment would not go down if I brought my own phone.

I mean, it was really difficult to get it unlocked after 60 days: you had to know the special password "for travel."

> Why is anyone even tolerating a carrier selling them a phone locked for a single day (unless it is free with plan or something in which case there's nothing wrong)?

I sometimes buy carrier locked phones when the unlock period is reasonable and the locked phone + the required service is a good deal compared to buying unlocked.

I don't think a 1 year locked period is reasonable though, unless it was locked to the carrier I actually intend to use.

> Why is anyone even tolerating a carrier selling them a phone locked for a single day

When I graduated from college, a large majority of the recent graduates at my first job had new cars.

I still see this trend - young people with the latest iphone and/or new cars, and not worrying about being tied to payments.

I think this will happen... forever.

Playing devils advocate…

In cases of fraud, it creates buffer time for the consumer who’s identity was stolen to notice and notify before the device disappears.

Historically phone locking was done at the modem level via an NCK code - if a phone is supplied by a carrier the modem will come pre-locked and will only be unlocked upon entry of an NCK code which the carrier has the secret key to generate (hash(secret+imei)). With this system if the phone is not locked to begin with I am not aware of any way to toggle this mechanism remotely.

With smartphones however, the game has changed. Apple for example no longer locks their modems at all and instead rely on a software-level check as part of the "activation" process (at first boot where it also gets its client certificates/etc to talk to Apple services) - said activation policy can be changed remotely, and Apple are very cagey about their full capabilities. I have read of some vendors selling iPhones that would be unlocked at first but lock themselves to the first carrier they see.

It's unlikely Apple would ever enforce or change an activation policy on a phone purchased directly from them, so you should be safe. But technically, it's up to the phone manufacturer. I am not sure what the Android situation is in comparison.

Technically possible

>I wish I wasn't so tempted after ~4 years, but the battery health has dropped to 75% and the performance has suffered dramatically.

Won't help with performance, but I've found that keeping bluetooth and location turned off lets me use the phone for the whole day without needing a recharge. Only thing that eats battery is video calls.

One of my oldest MSN friends (I think I have him on WhatsApp now) would unlock iPhones and later Androids for ages, his status on MSN was literally "I will unlock your phone" or something like that. Guy was from Belize, cool dude.

does the FCC still exist?

TracFone / Straight Talk was my MVNO of choice, then Verizon bought them. >sigh<

(I wonder if this unlocking policy will retroactively apply to the locked Striaght Talk phone I bought back in October.)

I haven't head of Slickdeals, but wouldn't you still be under the terms of the line contract?

They aren't going to lose their money.

Go a step further and switch to Mint, T-mobile's pay-as-you-go subsidiary. I'm paying $180/year for a single line. I've been on mint for ~3 years now.

On Mint your traffic is routed with lower priority than T-Mobile's main customers. In practice, I have only experienced this at busy airports and an MLB game - where basically service dropped to near zero. This is in the Boston area. Obviously not ideal if you're in those conditions regularly. Otherwise it's been awesome.

If the service is of interest my referral code is below. It gets you a $15 renewal credit for joining. Will the winds of votes love or hate a referral code? Who knows! apologies if I'm out of bounds. (I don't understand why it's out of bounds)

[0] http://fbuy.me/vks2P

Some of devices automatically lock once used on a carrier network