Cell phone carriers will usually offer you a great deal on cell phones when you sign a 1 year or more service contract with them. They will lower the price of the handset by hundreds of dollars, and they even go as far as giving you the cell phone for free.
They are actually losing a lot of money when they make you such an offer, and they want to make sure you’re a profitable client. In order to prevent you from breaking your contract with them, they force you to remain with them by locking the new phone you just bought.
This means you are not be able to use your cell phone with another carrier. Even when your contract has expired, your cell phone will remain locked and often you won’t have much choice but to buy a new phone if you want to switch to another carrier.
When talking about unlocked cell phones, we are mostly talking about GSM phones, which use SIM cards to store all your contacts and client information. CDMA phones can be unlocked too, but this article will focus on GSM phones.
What are unlocked cell phones
An unlocked cell phone basically allows you to move from carrier to carrier without having to change your handset. With a GSM cell phone, you could theorically have two SIM cards from two different carriers and switch carriers simply by changing SIM cards. This, however, will only work with an unlocked cell phone.
Why you would want to unlock you cell phone
1. Changing carriers on the go. Say you travel abroad often - you could want to sign up with two carriers in order to reduce costs, saving yourself any roaming charges, without having to carry two phones. You could simply switch SIM cards when you’re in another country.
2. Selling your cell phone. Say you plan on changing your phone and want to sell your old one. You are limiting your choice of buyers immensely if they can’t choose the carrier they want. Cell phones, when bought elsewhere than from a cell phone carrier, are often sold unlocked.
3. The practice of locking cell phones is bad for the consumer. By doing so, cell phone carriers force your to remain loyal to them and can charge you more for less. They are effectively trying to avoid competition with the other carriers.
A good compromise cell phone carriers could put into place would be to keep the cell phone locked for the duration of the contract and offer to unlock it when the contract ends. This would however prevent the user who has to travel abroad from switching SIM cards for the duration of the contract, so this is not an ideal solution. Unlocking your cell phone allows you to choose what’s best for you.
4. Exclusive handsets. Often, some handsets are exclusive to a specific carrier, like the iPhone. At the moment, you can only use an iPhone with AT&T. By unlocking a cell phone, you can use it with any carrier.
There has been some controversy recently on unlocked iPhones, as most unlocked iPhones have been rendered useless by the latest software update, but the idea remains the same.
Dangers of unlocking a cell phone
1. Carrier specific features might not work. Some carriers have specific services built into the handset, such as music downloading and web browsing. These features might not work if you try using them with an unlocked cell phone you did not buy from these carriers.
2. Unlocked cell phone could become non functional. The iPhone is a good example of this. Apple has released a software update which has made all unlocked iPhones unusable. This however happens only under rare circumstances.
3. Possible compatibility issues with foreign phones. There could potentially be some compatibility issues if you buy a phone from a foreign country, say somewhere in Asia, unlock it, and try to use it in your home country. Some features might not work properly because of differences in the cellular networks.
4. Some extra configuration might be required. In order to use some of the features like multimedia messaging and web browsing, you might have to configure your unlocked cell phone when switching to a new carrier.
How to unlock a cell phone
So, you’re considering unlocking your cell phone? There are many resources around the net which can help you achieve this. You can either:
Buy an unlocked cell phone. By buying a cell phone that is already unlocked, you’re saving yourself the hassle of reprogramming your phone. This is not a big deal - if you plan on buying a new phone and then unlock it, you should buy it unlocked in the first place. If you are interesting in buying an unlocked cell phone, you might want to check the following popular models from Amazon (aff):
Motorola RAZR V3 Black Phone (Unlocked)
LG KG800 Chocolate Black phone (Unlocked)
Nokia 6800 Cell Phone (Unlocked)
Sony Ericsson Z710i Twilight Black Phone (Unlocked)
Obtain an unlock code. You will usually find services around the net which will allow you to obtain an unlock code for your handset model. Some independent cell phone stores will also offer you to unlock your cell phone for a fee. You should keep the unlock code carefully in case your phone “relocks” itself - some carriers have been known to do this even when you did not buy the phone from them in the first place.
By locking cell phones, carriers are offering you a service at a higher cost and tend to develop less features since it makes the competition stagnate. By buying an unlocked cell phone, you are also making a statement against this practice. What do you think about unlocked cell phones? Are they worth it? Share your comments with us below.