Mobile phones in teh US
Duderonomy
Haut de la Garenne 7,787 Posts
Not sure where to ask this, so started a thread.
During recent trip to Memphis I was told that in the states a mobile phone contract is not simply tied to the service provider, but also to the handset.
This came from my dad, who is not particularly au fait with mobile phones.
Is this true?
He and other people I spoke to seemed surprised when I told them that in the UK your contract is linked to the chip and not the handset. You can remove that chip (if say, your phone runs out of juice), and put the chip into any other phone, and carry on making calls. This also means that the contract isn't linked to how much you spend on a phone, that you can either be given a phone upgrade via your contract (time & money spent), or simply go out and buy yourself the phone of your choice.
I learnt all this because my dad was proud of his phone. He told me it cost $200.00
It was full of advertising, completely un-user friendly, and seems like a massive con with the whole business about only being able to use one handset.
Is he being ripped-off, or this how mobile networks in the US are run?
During recent trip to Memphis I was told that in the states a mobile phone contract is not simply tied to the service provider, but also to the handset.
This came from my dad, who is not particularly au fait with mobile phones.
Is this true?
He and other people I spoke to seemed surprised when I told them that in the UK your contract is linked to the chip and not the handset. You can remove that chip (if say, your phone runs out of juice), and put the chip into any other phone, and carry on making calls. This also means that the contract isn't linked to how much you spend on a phone, that you can either be given a phone upgrade via your contract (time & money spent), or simply go out and buy yourself the phone of your choice.
I learnt all this because my dad was proud of his phone. He told me it cost $200.00
It was full of advertising, completely un-user friendly, and seems like a massive con with the whole business about only being able to use one handset.
Is he being ripped-off, or this how mobile networks in the US are run?
Comments
You can get unlocked handsets easy enough and use whatever service you'd like.
You can have an unlocked phone and go to the US and get a prepaid sim and no problems.
When you get a phone that is on contract through a particular carrier, the phone will be locked to that carrier. In many cases, you can unlock the phone yourself or pay someone to do it. But it is true about headsets are tied to carriers. This is due to getting a subsidy on the phone. It's how carriers sell phones and $0, etc...
An issue to be aware of is if what the network and phone are. You can't put a CDMA phone on a GSM network.