Filed under: iPhone
iPhone: 90 Days Later
With images of unlocked iPhones dancing in my head, today I gave AT&T a call. I confirmed that I now had my iPhone account active & in good standing for 90 days (the normal threshold for permitted unlocking) and requested a subsidy unlock for overseas travel. They transfered me to the technical support department, where I chatted with support rep Michael G.
Michael told me that there were no unlock codes available for the iPhone due to the exclusive agreement between Apple and AT&T. This includes countries like the UK and Germany, where the iPhone would soon be on sale. "We simply do not have unlock codes for them," he confirmed. I would have to use International roaming.
He recommended using a cheap disposable phone instead. With my account over 90 days old and in good standing, I was entitled to unlock a phone -- even if not the iPhone. He provided an unlock code for my little Motorola disposable.
So where does that leave us? Michael suggested that customers send their complaints directly to the FCC (1-888-CALL-FCC). He thinks that after 1 year, the FCC will force AT&T and Apple to provide unlocks for their customers.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
marcosmalo said 2:48PM on 9-28-2007
@14
Aron, you're exactly right, but we're still not quite there in terms of having fir, free, open, and fully transparent markets. Such a market might be impossible to achieve, but the closer we get, the more prosperous we will all be.
Which is not to say that government doesn't have a place as a regulating body. Unfortunately, as things stand now, corporate interests game the system for regulations that protect their positions, and the politicians and bureaucrats enable this. Regulation to protect the consumer or the public = good, regulation for anti-competition = bad.
Reply
James Donevan said 3:07PM on 9-28-2007
I'm guessing Erica did not advise Michael that she was a journalist (i.e. paid blogger) who intended to quote him in her reportage - basic protocol for any journalist. If I'm wrong, full apologies to Erica and commiserations to Michael G who exercised incredible stupidity to be quoted in this manner.
Hopefully Michael G has other employment opportunities at hand.
Reply
blake said 4:19PM on 9-28-2007
Do you people realize all the $$$ that apple and At&T put into this product because YOU wanted it? They did. They have the right to make money off of the product/service.
I am sure that they looked at all the legal concerns before they got into this game.
Why would you want to buy an iPhone and take it to another carrier? One of the best features of this phone is visual voicemail and if you change carriers then it will not work.
Just get an iPod Touch!!! Or just show Apple by not buying anything from them ever again. You all got back your $100.00 now stop crying!!!
Reply
Jason said 3:15PM on 9-28-2007
For all of those repeating this myth, here it is, once and for all:
There is NO LAW IN THE U.S. that requires a carrier to unlock your cell phone after 90 days.
As others have explained, the DMCA exemption only prevents you from being sued for copyright infringement. It does not require your carrier to unlock your phone for you, and it does not require the cell phone manufacturer to honor the warranty if your phone stops working.
What Erica calls "the normal threshold for permitted unlocking" is not an standard industry practice - some carriers (TMobile) will unlock your phone after 90 days. Others (AT&T) will not.
If you think I am wrong, then I challenge you to provide a reputable source (i.e., statute, regulation, caselaw) stating otherwise.
Reply
Jon said 3:18PM on 9-28-2007
@Joseph
Do you work for apple or what? I went back and read some of your other posts, just to see if you are always this annoying or only today, and yep..turns out you're annoying all the time.
Why do you post here only to stick up for apple? I know this is an apple fanboy site, but damn dude..get a life. Apple is NOT perfect.
Reply
Mo said 3:20PM on 9-28-2007
Three points:
1. The iPhone isn't subidised.
2. Even it were, you're still bound by the contract terms, even if you unlock the phone, so any subsidy would be paid regardless.
3. In the UK, as far as I know, it's a legal requirement to provide an unlock code, though it may cost a small fee (£10-20)
Reply
Mo said 3:24PM on 9-28-2007
Ofcom's guidelines, incidentally:
“However, mobiles should be able to be unlocked once the subsidy has been recovered. This should generally be within a year if not before.
· Charging for the associated admin costs of unlocking a mobile is acceptable, but customers should not expect to pay more than £30 + VAT”
Bearing in mind that the iPhone isn't subsidised… things could get interesting.
Reply
Tom Ritchford said 4:10PM on 9-28-2007
"In an open market, everyone wins."'
Unfortunately, that isn't the case. In a completely free market, companies do things so horrid that laws must be passed.
Consider the state of food production in the US before the FDA was founded. Consider the state of medical care in the US today.
Even the telecom industry, the market stagnated until laws were passed breaking up AT&T and forcing competition to appear. You probably don't remember these days but you'd rent the phone from the company, you weren't allowed to use alternative equipment -- long distance calls cost dollars a minute.
Consider the banking industry. For years, they all of them increased the amount of time that they'd hold your checks for deposit until you'd wait, literally, weeks between your paycheck being deposited and seeing the money (even though the money was taken out of your employer's account the next day). The banks all realized that this huge cash cow was worth more to them than getting a few extra customers by clearing checks fast -- so nothing happened until they passed a lot of laws about this.
A knowledge of history is really handy before making claims about the "free market". We had free markets for thousands of years; the vast majority of people suffered in poverty and were endlessly ripped off with no recourse.
Reply
Tom said 4:11PM on 9-28-2007
Erica, if you see this, can you find that comment from another TUAW thread about a dude canceling his plan as his iPhone was bricked and AT&T not charging him a cancellation fee because his phone didn't work anymore?
Reply
Joseph said 4:26PM on 9-28-2007
No, I don't work for Apple (and I'm not the only Joseph posting on TUAW, but most of my posts could probably be considered "pro-Apple"). I'm not trying to be a Scott Bourne here, but here are the points:
a) Apple and AT&T, in the US (where I live, I don't know anything about Europe) are not required to unlock phones. Just because you can get your Sony Ericsson or Moto phone unlocked from AT&T does not mean they are obligated to unlock your iPhone.
b) Just because there is an exemption saying that if you unlock your iPhone you are not liable under the DMCA does not mean you have the right to do so. Sure, you paid for it, so go ahead and hack it. The point is, Apple is under no obligation to accommodate you when it comes to future software updates. They do not have to preserve your hacks.
c) Apple and AT&T were up front about how this was going to work. They have not sprung any surprises on anyone. If you bought an iPhone with the expectation that you were going to be able to unlock it and still get all the new features with future software updates, well, you're an idiot. Sorry.
Reply
marcosmalo said 4:46PM on 9-28-2007
So, Joseph, you're retracting your original comment that complaining to the FCC is useless and admitting that you were wrong on that point? I'm assuming so, since you dropped it from your list of points.
Reply
Mike said 4:50PM on 9-28-2007
I also don't work for Apple and agree with Joseph (please don't shoot me!).
It was no secret that Apple wanted purchasers to lock themselves into AT&T and that those buying the iPhone were buying a device with a limited feature-set (and no Apple approved SDK). It is disappointing (to say the least) that the third party apps are not currently working but everyone knew Apple didn't want apps developed that way.
And as for the locking of the SIMs to AT&T, for financial reasons Apple and AT&T want the monthly revenue. A good point was made on a podcast last week that just as Apple had to get into bed with the record companies and put DRM on iTunes to make it the success it is today, Apple felt they had to get into bed with AT&T and lock people into the one network for the next five years. Once Apple are established in the cellphone market, they can then tell AT&T where to go and open up to all. And you never know, there may be a CDMA version of the iPhone before then...?
Reply
Santa said 4:52PM on 9-28-2007
Is it the currently prevailing hacker mentality the makes people obsessed with the locked part of the iPhone. One earlier post said it quite adequately. We knew all the rules, boundaries and regulations when we bought the thing and I, for one, was very happy and excited to take mine home and discover its features. I was in the UK when it was released and the day after I got back home I went and bought it. Recently, after the initial upset over the price drop I was quite pleased when the "refund" was announced. We used it as a partial payment for my wife's iPhone. Now we are both quite happy. We have two more months to go with Verizon (@ $89.00 a month) but enjoying the iPhone makes it worth it.
Verizon is so inflexible, so rules oriented,it's unbelievable. We have three lines with them. We got the third line for a special temporary situation. When we asked to take it out of our account, they want $175 each for the 2 x $9.99 family plan premature cancellation as well as $175 for the original line. So I pay two month and then GOOD RIDDANCE after about 20 years with Verizon.
Just enter their store, utter your phone number and your contract is either being renewed or extended for two more years. GREED @ it's worst.
Reply
Joseph said 8:51PM on 9-28-2007
@marcosmalo: no, I do not retract my previous statement. My last post should have covered that, since Apple and AT&T have no obligation to unlock it and you are not entitled necessarily to an unlock, what point is complaining to the FCC
Reply
andrew said 5:01PM on 9-28-2007
So, what happens after the 2 year contract is up? Is the phone *still* locked to AT&T?
Good 'ol AT&T. Isn't the same company that got hammered by several anti-trust gavels? There is an interesting parallel between locking a phone to a cell network and preventing someone from hooking up anything other than a 'Ma Bell' rented phone or answering machine. I guess AT&T didn't learn about anti-trust in the past 50 or so years :)
Reply
Jim said 5:12PM on 9-28-2007
We all knew the iPhone was locked from the outset.
I have ZERO sympathy.
Buy a new phone and deal.
Reply
James said 5:13PM on 9-28-2007
Unlocking iPhone is just a few clicks away.
james @ http://www.prankvideoz.com/
Reply
DrunkDwarf said 5:24PM on 9-28-2007
So now you admit you didn't read the license agreement you agreed to with your iPhone? After all, it's excruciatingly clear on the subject of unlocking.
Not satisfied with the part you played in getting 3rd party apps locked out now you are charging off to make sure the situation is similarly polarized over international roaming?
I can only hope Apple's legal department finds something to trip you up with soon before you make things even worse than you already have.
Just remember Erica, Apple had a very nice up-grader in-place for the 3rd party app users in 1.1.1. If was your efforts on the phreaking code that forced Apple to take away our apps at the last minute.
Reply
diggum said 5:37PM on 9-28-2007
Joseph said: The point is when the phone was announced, when you bought it, when you took it home, it was locked. You knew it was locked. There was no getting around it.
This is just wrong. I walked into an Apple Store, said I wanted to buy the iPhone. The clerk took my credit card, processed the order, and I was out the door in under 5 minutes. Nowhere on the gorgeous box did it say it was limited to AT&T use. You only found this out when you connected it to your computer because it told you to do so when it was first powered up.
Apple didn't wish to sully their beautiful box with a bright sticker announcing that it would only work with AT&T. The clerks at Apple did not mention this during the sales process.
I purchased a cellular phone that was compatible with GSM networks. While it's certainly true that some features such as Visual Voicemail needed backend support from the carrier, it by no means limits the phone to a particular carrier, as we've all seen.
Work on your argument.
Reply
iActivatorUser said 5:42PM on 9-28-2007
Hey, I broke the shrinkwrap, loaded my existing SIM and activated with iActivator; i never saw nor agreed with any EULA.
Reply