Business Week agrees, unlocked is the only way to fly
By Stefan Constantinescu on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 1:54 AM PST In Telecommunications
Customers—some from as far away as Canada—camped through the night outside the store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. No, it wasn’t the first shipment of Sony’s PlayStation 3 or Nintendo’s Wii gaming console they awaited—but cell phones. And not just any cell phones. These ones, unveiled at the summer opening of the flagship store owned by mobile-phone giant Nokia (NYSE: NOK), boasted features such as multimegapixel cameras and the ability to surf the Internet over wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, connections. Best of all: They were among the first in the U.S. that could be used on any one of several wireless networks.
That’s a radical idea in a country where switching among cell-phone providers invariably means changing phones. Say you want to move from Cingular, owned by AT&T (NYSE: T) (T) and BellSouth (BLS), to Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT)’s (DT) T-Mobile (NYSE: DT), your Cingular device won’t work on T-Mobile’s network. Not so with one of these "unlocked" phones from Nokia. And as the phones gain in popularity, switching may increase, benefiting handset makers and forcing providers to cut prices to foster loyalty.
Unlocked devices have long been a hit in Europe and Asia, where people often switch carriers when traveling from country to country. In fact, most cell phones sold in those regions are unlocked, says Albert Lin, an analyst with American Technology Research. But until Nokia’s move, few major cell-phone makers had dared peddle their entire line of unlocked phones in North America, where carriers hold tight reins on subscribers and their phones.
Source: Business Week
I wrote a highly similar piece called "The American Cellular Telecommunications Industry Needs A Swift Kick In The Ass" about 3 days ago. I agree with everything the author said, unlocked phone are simply what this country needs and handset makers need to start educating consumers about the benefits.
Nokia, dear Nokia, open up a flagship store in Dallas … please?
This is weird. Such giant of electronics as USA looks like 3rd world in this area. Please dont take this as an offence anainst you, but in this area you are sooooooooo far away behind Europe.
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I was thinking, could it be because you have huge country size (many people never even leaves state borders in their entire life), plus few networks? So no need to change?
In Europe you change networks so often, that roaming services in all bussiness plans are default on (at least in Poland).
You do sign contract if you like, but you can always buy the phone without the simlock, or remove it somewhere (there might be some warranty issues but … you know
Just to provide full info. Most of the time, removing simlock anywhere else than in the authorised place is breaking the law (at least this is what agreement says). I’m not a lawyer so I dont know is this only to scare people or is it true.
no offense taken, don’t blame the users, blame the FCC and cellular carriers for being greedy and blind!
Hopefully other mobile makers will follow Nokia’s example and the whole mobile market in US will change finally and we will have full variety of mobile phones available. So there would be no such a thing like buying a new phone online blind. I would love to go the store, check the demo phone, get the feeling and then buy it. I would love also to see variety of phones in hands of users. Sometimes, I think it is generation of Motorola Razor, because this is the only phone every carrier sell and promote. People think this is the only phone out there and the most fashionable. This is so stupid!
Hey I’m hoping too, if you checked out the article then they said that in a few years time people hope that 1/3 rd of all mobiles sold in the states will be unlocked