Are unlocked smartphones finally coming to Americans?
Unlocked cell phones and smartphones are pretty commonplace in most parts of the world. In many ways, the U.S. market is an exception with phones that are locked to a given carrier (regardless of whether they were purchased at a subsidized price with a contract or not). This generally results in customers needing to purchase a new phone when they switch carriers and, combined with early termination fees (which have significant increases by some carriers – AT&T I’m looking at you and the fact that you practically doubled smartphone termination fees while cutting out unlimited data plans), also leads consumers to switch carriers much less frequently. In Europe, unlocked phones are more common for a couple of reasons. First, some EU nations mandate that unlocked phones be offered to consumers (albeit at full, unsubsidized pricing). France is a great example and its because of such laws that the first unlocked iPhones were sold. More practically, users tend to move between multiple countri
