Unlocking phones

For example, using calling cards is significantly easier in Nigeria than in the U.S. In Nigeria, you just load the card and enter an access code only once. In the U.S., you have to, at the minimum, dial an access code every time you make a call with the card. Furthermore, every phone that is […]

For example, using calling cards is significantly easier in Nigeria than in the U.S. In Nigeria, you just load the card and enter an access code only once. In the U.S., you have to, at the minimum, dial an access code every time you make a call with the card. Furthermore, every phone that is sold to you in Nigeria is unlocked, thereby allowing you to load the subscriber identity module (SIM) cards of any of the local carriers (Airtel, Etisalat, Glo, MTN, etc.), and you can change the carrier at will, without having to think of SIM card-phone device compatibility.
Furthermore, in Nigeria, you can buy your phone “on the counter,” or literarily on the street, in traffic, and the phone will work with the SIM card of any local carrier. This is obviously not the case in the U.S. To add to the freedom that you have in Nigeria, the choice of phones available on the streets of cities like Lagos, Abuja, Kano, or Port Harcourt, is quite large, including a large selection of the “no-frills” varieties, including those from China.  Some of these phone varieties work very well, comparable to high-end, premium products, say from Samsung or Apple.
Another source of telecom disappointment that Nigerians experience while visiting the U.S. is the fact that, in the pay-as-you-go model in the U.S., you pay for all calls: incoming and outgoing. In Nigeria, you do not pay for incoming calls, and you can talk for any length of time on someone else’s ticket. I like this flexibility a great deal because when you are short of cash and cannot top up, you can at least receive calls from contacts who don’t mind paying for the calls.
The fact that phones in the U.S. are by default locked presents some unfavorable realities if you buy phones there to use in other countries without intending to roam. At the minimum, you have to get the phone unlocked before you leave the U.S. You can unlock most types of phones with the help of the carrier, except for the inconvenience that in most cases you have to wait for a “gestation” period, which could be up to 3 months for AT&T phones. Unlocking phones (and tablets) manufactured by Apple is not a stroll in the park. You lose your warranty and the support that come with phone purchase, if you unlock the device.
Unlike other U.S. carriers (for example, Verizon Wireless, Sprint) who use the code division multiple access (CDMA) technology for their devices, AT&T uses the global system for mobile (GSM) communications, which is the system that is used in most parts of the world. (T-Mobile also uses GSM, but it is a smaller company compared to AT&T.) Therefore, phones carried by AT&T are excellent targets for export, but they first have to be unlocked. Before now, this scheme worked well, and some businesses have been developed to export used smartphones from the U.S. to poorer countries in Asia, where the average folks cannot afford new, high-end smartphones, such as the iPhones.
Locking of phones by U.S. carriers is a scheme devised to prevent the potential loss associated with the subsidy model used by the carriers. The model allows you to buy phones at substantially subsidized prices, but requires you to stay with the carrier for a stipulated length of time, say 2 years, with substantial penalty for early contract termination. However, even if you opt to pay the full price of the phones, you still get a locked phone!
Although AT&T provides the unlock code to individual customers free of charge, it does charge some amount for bulk-unlocking requests by used-smartphone businesses. The unlocking business is pretty “hot” in Asia, where the service is also significantly cheaper. This is where the used-phone businesses go for their unlocking needs. Basically, a used-phone business buys the used locked phones in bulk, in hundreds or thousands, may be, and simply e-mails their serial (IMEI) numbers to Asia, to have the phones remotely and permanently unlocked.
It should be noted that the recent difficulties in unlocking phones pertain mainly to iPhones sold by AT&T. Furthermore, it is believed that the major problems are encountered in bulk-unlocking. That is, AT&T is still very liberal in unlocking for individual iPhone buyer, although the procedure is believed to be a bit more tedious.
By the power of intentions, the difficulty in unlocking AT&T-sold iPhones has undermined the value of used phones from the company, which used to command premium prices compared to similar devices from competing U.S. carriers. Thus, the advantage that AT&T phones had in using the universal GSM model, compared with its competitors, is being eroded by the company’s apparent crackdown on bulk-unlocking.
The main idea in this article is that, for several reasons, phone services are less convenient in the U.S., for example, when compared to similar services in Nigeria. Locking phones to the selling carrier’s network in the U.S. is one of the problems you don’t find in many countries. The iPhones cannot be legally unlocked, although there are businesses that used to be able to unlock them for a fee. Starting from last month, AT&T appears to have started to crack down on bulk-unlocking of iPhones. As a result, businesses specializing in exporting used-smartphones from the U.S. to poorer countries in Asia, are folding up.