Around the World
Europe phones locked now?
Is it true that European cell phone companies are now locking their phones, too? I thought virutally all cell phones bought in Europe were unlocked.
-Kieran
-Kieran
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I know of at least one that is. We had a young man come into our store the other day with a European phone and wanted to get it activated on ATTWS GSM service. We popped one of our cards in it to make sure it would work, got the message "Wrong SIM."
Speedywalk
"It ain't broke, it just needs duct tape!"
Speedywalk
"It ain't broke, it just needs duct tape!"
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i work for T-Mobile. never have seen a european or asian phone locked yet. i will be on the look out. i would think they would not lock them, too much competition as it is. now the carriers have exclusive phones? strange. i pretty sure T-Mo germany has a Sharp TM-200 phone that no one else has but i could be wrong.
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I believe that most European networks have been locking their handsets for at least a couple of years now.
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I know all the carriers in UK lock their phones and have for a year, IE Orange, T-mobile UK, Vodafone.
-Z
-Z
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Several European service providers are beginning to lock their phones by offering discounts on "annual contracts, lasting 24 months". These contracts offer lower costs per call, discounts on the phone, etc.
It resembles the US market of Pre-Paid vs. normal contract phones.
However, several places still offer unlocked phones, which you can then switch to the annual contracts. Check out stores like FNAC, Virgin, etc. EBAY as always is a great source for unlocked phones. In general phones are much cheaper in the US still, even though Europe often times gets them first. Check out:
http://www.gsmworld.com/index.shtml »
This website lists mobile carriers and their frequencies by country, etc.
Check out my posting to the quest...
(continues)
It resembles the US market of Pre-Paid vs. normal contract phones.
However, several places still offer unlocked phones, which you can then switch to the annual contracts. Check out stores like FNAC, Virgin, etc. EBAY as always is a great source for unlocked phones. In general phones are much cheaper in the US still, even though Europe often times gets them first. Check out:
http://www.gsmworld.com/index.shtml »
This website lists mobile carriers and their frequencies by country, etc.
Check out my posting to the quest...
(continues)
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My understanding of the situation was something very similar to what you outlined above. One additional point though - my experience has been that European carriers are much more lenient about unlocking their phones that American carriers. For instance, I recently obtained the unlock codes for a phone that a customer brought back from Germany from T-Mobile Germany. T-Moble customer care in Germany just gave me the unlock code. (It wasn't like dealing with T-Mobile USA were you have to be an active customer for 90 days etc). They just asked me for the IMEI and then e-mailed me the code to unlock it. (Of course, he did want to use it for service through T-Mobile USA, so that may have helped the situation along a little).
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