
Apple’s Official iPhone 3G Unlock - newacc
http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/08/20/20gigaom-apples-official-iphone-3g-unlock-99791.html
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dreish
Here's the article at theappleblog.com, which I believe is where it was
originally posted:

[http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/20/apples-official-
iphone-3g...](http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/20/apples-official-
iphone-3g-unlock/)

~~~
akirk
It also shows the picture which is mentioned in the NY Times article, but the
NYT failed to include it.

~~~
eli
NYT's syndication of gigaom has always been a little wonky

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cesare
How is this noteworthy?

If he paid off the remainder of the contract, he paid the full price of the
phone. Every carrier lets you unlock your phone at that point, AFAIK.

I bought my iPhone 3G in Italy (where I live) last year in october already
unlocked (legally) and bundled with a rechargeable Vodafone sim card.

Edit: Furthermore, since the 3gs came out, you can also buy them at the Apple
Stores.

2nd edit: here in Italy, subsidized phones are locked for the duration of the
contract (usually two years). Once the contract is over you can unlock the
phone. Or you can buy any phone unlocked for the full price.

This also apply to the iPhone.

Usually the difference in price of a contract with a subsidized phone and the
same contract without any phone is almost exactly the difference between the
full price of the phone and the subsidized price (split in the 24 months of
the contract).

Isn't the same as in the US?

~~~
m_eiman
Perhaps it's different in the US. The terms in their mobile phone contracts do
seem to be from another world (pay for reciving SMSs and calls? How is that
even legal?).

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I think all the carriers charge for incoming data in the US (voice, SMS or
otherwise)

~~~
pavlov
Why do American consumers put up with that? (It's not like that anywhere else
in the world, AFAIK.)

If you have a landline phone and it rings, you don't expect to be paying the
bill... How did it happen that mobile phones got treated differently and
nobody raised a stink about this rip-off?

~~~
mosburger
You're absolutely correct. I used to work in the Mobile industry in the U.S.
FWIW, here's the sordid history behind the craziness - it wasn't merely to rip
the consumer off initially. It might help to imagine that all of this is
taking place about 15 years ago:

Traditionally, toll charges (a surcharge) can be assessed to the calling party
in the U.S. based mostly on area code (a.k.a. the NPA, the first three digits
of the phone number), which designates a geographic region of the country.
Thus, the caller knows how much toll he/she will be charged based on the phone
number. I live in Maine, which is in the northeastern part of the U.S., with a
207 area code. If I call a number with a 310 area code (mobile, landline, it
doesn't matter), I know that's in Los Angeles, and I can expect to be assessed
toll charges based on the fact that it is so far away.

Let's say I'm a mobile subscriber living in Maine, thus my mobile number will
start with Maine's area code (207). Let's say my mom, who also lives in Maine,
gives me a call. I happen to be roaming in Los Angeles.

When mom calls my mobile number, that call is routed to my home switch (a.k.a.
the HLR). which then forwards the call using a technique called "call
delivery," to a temporary number (called a TLDN) that was assigned to me by
the visiting switch (the VLR), when I arrived in L.A. My home switch knows my
temporary number because it was transmitted to it when I arrived in L.A., so
it's no biggie for it to just forward the call.

Now - who should pay the toll on the "leg" of the call between Maine and L.A.?
My mom didn't know I was in California, so is it fair to hit her with toll
charges because she had no idea she was calling all the way across the
country. Naturally, it makes more sense to hit the receiving end with the toll
charges.

In addition to toll, we used to have a myriad of mobile network providers in
the U.S., and they had varying roaming agreements which charged the home
carrier different airtime rates based on the nature of the agreement between
the carriers. Again, when I was in L.A., it probably cost my home carrier in
Maine a lot more because the L.A. carrier would charge the Maine carrier an
arm and a leg to host my call. Who is responsible for this increase in
charges? There was no technical mechanism to pass it on to my mom, and it
probably wouldn't be fair to sock her with it anyway, so it was charged to me,
the recipient.

Now, with the advent of national plans with thousands of minutes, and with
carriers consolidated down to a few national networks, and very low network
costs, a lot of this doesn't make sense anymore. And some carriers (I saw that
someone mentioned U.S. Cellular) are coming to their wits and abandoning this
tradition. But getting huge, stodgy networks to change their ways and drop a
cash cow for the hell of it when they have a virtual monopoly won't happen
overnight.

TL;DR - it's a holdover from the early days when roaming cost more, and it
wasn't fair to hit the calling party with surprise charges. It probably
shouldn't be that way any more.

~~~
solutionyogi
It still doesn't make sense. They should have charged your Mom for the local
call and charged you for the leg between Maine and LA.

In India, in earlier days, each cellphone number will have a 'home area'
generally conformed to the state you live in. If you are in the state where
you bought the phone, you don't pay any incoming charges (voice/sms). Anyone
else calling you will pay charges to connect to your number. If you are going
out of your home state, you have to 'activate' roaming (it could be automatic
if you wish to) and now you pay the 'roaming' charges from your home state to
the current place where you are roaming.

Above is how it used to work when cell phones had just arrived. These days you
pay a flat fee if you are calling another mobile from your mobile. Incoming
call is free for the other party. Things do change if you call a landline
phone from mobile (you pay higher rate because landline is mostly government
owned in India).

~~~
aaronkaplan
_They should have charged your Mom for the local call and charged you for the
leg between Maine and LA._

That _is_ how it works. In the US local calls are free, and his mom pays all
$0 of it.

