![]() You see, when you buy a phone on a contract, you’re actually not getting a phone for free or at a discount. When made to defend this practice, the carriers basically argued that locks help protect their property. Talk about the ol’ ball and chain, cell phone locks ensure that carriers keep your business until you buy a new phone from a different carrier. The reason that your service provider locks their mobile phones is to keep you from switching to another carrier. So, an unlocked phone is just one without a carrier-specific lock built in or one that has had this software lock uninstalled. This lock is installed at the request of wireless carriers, who use this lock to restrict the use of the phone to their own networks. Wondering about the tech behind this? Well, the whole unlocked/locked thing comes down to software.Ī lock is a capability built into a phone’s software by the manufacturer. But if I had a phone locked to Rogers, I wouldn’t be able to get the phone to work using a Bell SIM card (without unlocking the phone first, that is). Locked phones, on the other hand, can just be used on one.įor example, if I had an unlocked phone, I could choose a plan with Rogers, Koodo, Bell, or most other carriers out there. The best way to test your phone’s lock status is by popping in a SIM card from another carrier- you’ll see an error message if your phone is locked.Īn unlocked phone is one that can be used on any wireless network.If you have a locked phone, the only way to get it unlocked is through your wireless carrier.Locked phones are the default in Canada ( Note: thanks to recent legislation, all new phones will be sold unlocked starting in December of 2017… until then, assume you’ve got a locked phone.) Unless you specifically sought out to get an unlocked phone, your phone is probably locked.A locked phone can switch owners, phone numbers, specific plans, but not carriers. Making sure you don’t switch carriers is basically the whole point of phone locks.Instead locked phones can only be used with one carrier. Unlocked phones can be used on almost any wireless carrier.To clear all of that up, here is your definitive guide to unlocked phones. Not to mention the amount of confusing acronyms and outdated information that can make your head spin. ![]() The bad news: good information on unlocked phones can be kind of hard to come by.Ī lot of stuff out there only applies to the US and not Canada. The good news? It’s not horribly complicated. Unlocking matters if you’re switching carriers, buying a used phone, going travelling, and so on. It affects almost anything you’d want to do with a smartphone outside of day-to-day use. But if you should understand one thing about smartphones, you should understand the whole deal with unlocked phones. ![]() You don’t need to be an expert in all things mobile to get a working iPhone in Canada.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |