UK mobile firms won't be able to sell locked phones from Dec 2021

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And Ofcom is looking to make broadband switching between networks easier.

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Read more.

Whelp, about a million "unlock your phone" stores are about to suddenly feel a dent.

Tbh, it should have happened donkeys years ago.

Just means they'll find more insidious ways of filling your phone with cack.

I thought the networks had already decided this and stopped locking the phones at least 5 years ago anyway, but as the article states, apparently there were still a few doing it for some reason.

Some networks would lock phones when you put their SIM in, get a nice new shiny unlocked phone from Apple, put a certain SIM in it and it would lock to that network..

Rather naughty.

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Originally Posted by [GSV]Trig

Some networks would lock phones when you put their SIM in, get a nice new shiny unlocked phone from Apple, put a certain SIM in it and it would lock to that network..

Rather naughty.

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That one sounds like it's how Apple specifically designed it to be though, rather than specifically the network side.

Although at the same time it wouldn't surprise me if the US mobile networks demanded that kind of thing originally.

I would have thought locked phones these days were really only going to the seriously unready and ill-prepared buyer.

I mean, my tech background is pretty good, but I'm a smartphone neophyte. Until earlier this year, I had managed avoid getting one at all and my knowledge of smartphones could be, well, written on the pointy end of a very sharp needle, using a 6" paint brush. My previous mobile phone's fanciest feature was having about 10 'memories' for fast dial.

So I approached buying one with probably less phone knowledge that the average 4 Yr old, and WAY less than a 10 Yr old, and even I knew better than to buy a locked phone (unless I had a really good reason for doing it deliberately, which I didn't).

Took little, too late, from OfCom. As usual.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

I would have thought locked phones these days were really only going to the seriously unready and ill-prepared buyer.

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I agree, as far as i can see this all started to happen when dual sim devices started being common place about 5 years ago. As usual, it took regulators quite a long time to do anything that might threaten networks in the slightest.