Filed under: Rumors, Bad Apple, iPhone
Are French "unlocked" iPhone Country-locked?
Website iPhone Atlas reports that unlocked French iPhones may not actually be as unlocked as you'd initially guess. They write that these €649 devices will only work with French SIM cards. If you buy the "unlocked" iPhone in France, head over to Spain or Canada or wherever, and stick in a foreign SIM, you'll end up paying mucho-euros in roaming fees to a French carrier. Head over to iPhone Atlas to read the entire story.
So is this not-entirely-unlocked thing for real or FUD? Let us know in the comments.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jeff said 12:19PM on 12-14-2007
No, this doesn't make sense, and the article contradicts itself. Assuming that a country-lock is possible, it wouldn't be any different than a company lock: if you use an unauthorized SIM, the phone won't work. The roaming BS is just that.
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Wojtek said 12:32PM on 12-14-2007
Exactly. If this is the case (and country-sim-locking is indeed possible), what happens anywhere in the World, including France, is "SIM card rejected" or some similar prompt on-screen.
Because how would you like to log into a network, not to mention roam within GSM networks, if your card has been rejected by the phone itself, Erica?
PeterB7 said 12:23PM on 12-14-2007
If this is true, Apple has done it again… This is against all common sense and practice. An unlocked phone should work in any country, that is one of the reasons people buy unlocked phones! Why should I pay roaming charges when I can avoid it with a normal unlocked phone? (To this day I have had nokias, sony-ericssons, O2s, samsungs, ALL of them were unlocked completely & were used in other countries with other sim-cards. Does Apple really want this bad publicity?
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mikka said 1:08PM on 12-14-2007
yeah I'm pretty sure Apple's been working on getting as much bad publicity as possible. It makes sense - they can't sell locked phones, so why not keep those phones in France?
JM said 12:33PM on 12-14-2007
in GSM you can have 4 different sim locks:
- SIM card (only allows a single SIM card)
- Tariff (block prepay/contract sim cards)
- Operator
- Country
So Apple can apply any of those 4 locks if they well damn please.. but consumers might get rather angry and the European Union might have something to say to this country lock thing.
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eksyt said 12:36PM on 12-14-2007
iphone atlas doesn't get all the facts.
for 649 EUR you get an iphone from Orange WITH a simlock but no monthly dat contract thingy.
if you want it unlocked, you have to pay 100 EUR more within the 6 first months.
Unlocking is free after the 6 first month of the purchase.
easy, isn't it?!
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Lutz said 12:50PM on 12-14-2007
This is caused by Apple's buggy implementation of national caller IDs in GSM networks (for those reading German, see http://www.macwelt.de/news/iphone/350916/index.html).
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Björn said 1:04PM on 12-14-2007
If this is really the case, I am sure, Apple will face some serious legal problems sooner than later. The European Union is supposed to work as a single market with a free flow of goods and services. If a company tries to restrict something to just one country, the European Commission usually rips these rules apart. I don't see why this case should be any different...
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jgjay said 1:46PM on 12-14-2007
Yeah, just look at what they did when Apple tried to segment the EU Single Market with the iTunes Store... oh wait, they've done sod all.
Mikael said 1:06PM on 12-14-2007
If the phones are country.locked, then this would probably be in violation of EU-law, the same laws that Apple may get in trouble with with regards to different iTunes stores in different countries.
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Daniel said 1:42PM on 12-14-2007
The more Apple operate like this, the more i'm turned away from them.
don't get me wrong, i like using Apple products, but i'll be fucked if i'm told that spending 650 euro's means i still can't use my product where i want.
Steve, you are turning into a right creedy c**nt, and if this is a taste of things to come, i'll look at sinking my cash elsewhere, with companies who don't treat us like idiots *cough Nokia *cough
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Mo said 2:09PM on 12-14-2007
I don't know if this is true or not, but it IS definitely possible. It's not one of the normal types of lock, but that's not really a problem if you control the firmware.
GSM SIM IDs are specified by ITU-T rec. E.118, which is based on the specifications of ISO/IEC 7812, the standard which controls the numbering, electronic and physical characteristics of credit and debit cards (amongst other things). The numbering of ISO 7812-compliant cards is that the first digits are the “Major Industry Identifier”. All GSM SIMs' MIIs are 89 (Telecoms), which puts the next level of numbering under the ITU-T's control. E.118 specifies that the digits following the MII are the country code as specified in E.164.
The phone knows what the ICCID is (because it has to communicate it to the network), so altering behaviour based upon the first few digits would be comparatively trivial. An operator lock just checks a few more digits, and a SIM lock the whole string. For example, an Orange UK SIM might start with 894412 (MII = 89, 44 = UK international dialling code as specified by E.164, 12 = network identifier, issued by the local telecommunications authority—in this case, Ofcom).
HOWEVER, I don't know whether Apple have actually done this—all I know is that it's entirely possible for any GSM firmware developer to do it to their hardware.
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quicknik said 2:18PM on 12-14-2007
This country-lock situation has me laughing at all the wiseguys who thought they could pull yet another fast one on Apple. This is seriously funny to me. I mean, come on! First of all, whiney, arrogant, self-entitled consumers -- who feel that Apple "owes" them an unlocked phone, as if -- need to get over themselves. Secondly, this is yet another example of why I have so much respect for Apple as a company: they think of EVERYTHING; they do NOTHING half-ass. Now the choice is this: buy their products and share in that respect, or give 'em the finger but then go buy your toys ELSEWHERE!... you can't have both!
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Daniel said 2:50PM on 12-14-2007
@quicknik,
you've missed the point. if you, as a consumer, pay 650 euro's for a phone and at no point in that transaction did anyone else subsidise that purchase, you have a full legal right to own your product and use it across the european union.
On the other hand, if you have a company telling you that they happily took your cash for a very overpriced unit, and then said you cannot use it when you venture outside of said country, then you have a right to be a "whiney, arrogant, self-entitled consumer"
you can use the same concept with most products. Buy a Citroen car, but only be allowed to use it in France. Buy a Bose stereo but only allowed to use it in your city.
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quicknik said 3:32PM on 12-14-2007
@ Daniel,
No. This is not the case. Simply because other manufacturers choose to completely unlock their phones internationally, doesn't mean that Apple is obligated to do the same. The French law applies ONLY to phones operating in France. Period. That's the ONLY law Apple was bound to. And as far as the unit being 'overpriced,' the customer knows that fact at the onset. The entire purchase is made with informed consent. There is nothing underhanded about this. The only issue here is assumptions a customer might make, based entirely on anecdotal experience with other manufacturers, and not out of familiarity with French law.
WiFone said 9:39AM on 12-15-2007
There's more to it than French law...
EU law dictates free flow of goods. Period. Any company or country not complying is liable. Enforcement is just a matter of time and effort.
So if an iPhone in the EU is sold SIM-unlocked with the permission of Apple (the intellectual property rights' holder) , as some of the French and German ones are, EU law implies that discrimination between telephone operators from one country (France, Germany) and operators active in the EU is illegal. So imho Apple WILL get slapped on the wrist for not complying with EU law. BUT as law moves at a much slower pace than this industry, Apple probably chooses to go ahead anyway.
Yes they have learned well from Microsoft and the Telcos how to behave evil and get away with enough cash not to care about it.
patvg said 2:53PM on 12-14-2007
I don't understand that TUAW suddenly gets down to a low level of informing their readers ! an iPhone (US, French or UK) OOB 1.1.2 unlocked reacts identically to an iPhone 1.1.1 upgraded to 1.1.2, i.e. you have to patch the Appsupport•plist, or run iWorld from the installer ; on an OOB 1.1.2 French Orange unlocked iPhone, this simply means you have to take you 1.1.2 OOB Orange, unlocked (you payed 645 + 100 EURO), downgrade in iTunes to 1.1.1 (why ? because you need to jeailbreak and install installer on 1.1.2), run Oktoprep from installer, upgrade in iTunes to 1.1.2, jailbreak.jar under 1.1.2 (now you have installer under 1.1.2) and run iWorld ;that's it
The French iPhone is in terms of the software installed on it in NO WAY different from the US, German or UK version !
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Jaemon said 5:59PM on 12-14-2007
The comparison with the cars is rubbish
Yea you can go to France and buy a car and drive it to another country...
but when you cross the border you have pay registration tax often as much as the car cost in it self.
So how smart is it ?
And dont you think O2 Orange and T-Mobile was smart enough to put in exclution clauses in their contract with Apple ???
I sure would not want pescy potential customers going across the border picking up an iPhone and then using it with another operator. Especially after I agreed to Apples terms to get the iPhone exclusively.
The operators would probably roast Apple over on a slowly rotating spit for breaking their end of the exclusive deal...
Not worth much if you allow people to jump the border and bring back unlocked iPhones ?
And the accusation of Apple wanting to break up the European music market.... rubbish too.
That is so much the record companies that have exclusive deals on each little country in the EC.
You are barking up the wrong tree and it wont change.
Pony up the cash and get a Jesus phone or if you dont then dont.
But for crying out loud stop whining about it.
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abra said 1:21AM on 12-15-2007
Actually Daniel's car analogy is quite valid and it's your dismissal of it that's specious.
The registration and other taxes one pays when taking a car to another country go to the country's authorities and not to the car manufacturer. The point of the comparison to the car is about the right to take your car to other countries and not about what that cost might be. A large number of mobile consumers are demanding to use the iPhone wherever they wish and that's not an unreasonable demand.
Further to the car analogy, Apple (or any phone manufacturer) taking a cut of the network provider's revenue would be akin to a car manufacturer taking a kickback from the road authorities for the toll revenue their cars generate and therefore designing the cars so they only operate on those toll roads.
Of course no one would buy such a car because other cars are available, but let's suppose tomorrow GM introduced a car that gave you 200 miles per gallon and for no technical reason only sold it to you on the condition that you only drove it on the turnpikes from which it was receiving a kickback and installed mechanisms in the car that prohibited you from driving on other highways.
Would consumers accept that? I think not, irrespective of its legality or illegality.
Let's not as consumers acquiesce to anti consumer practices such as Apple's forced locking of the iPhone. The iPhone is made/assembled in China, with parts sourced from around the world, and in an era of globalization and instant dissemination of information, yet Apple's position is you can't buy or use it except on the networks and in the countries it permits and for no technical reason but simply because it's extracted a kickback from those network providers!
And this from the company that brought us the liberating personal computer and in 1984 launched the Mac with its anti Big Brother campaign.
To my mind as a Mac user/owner/developer since 1984 this is far more egregious corporate misbehavior than Microsoft ever mustered.
Jaemon said 4:09AM on 12-15-2007
Not to repeat myself,
I still think its a condition in the contract that Apple have with O2 Orange and T-Mobile.
Its simple there would be little point in having an exclusive contact if you dont give the provider protection against parallel import. If it was so why would anybody buy the unlocked iphone in Germany ? the price difference for "unlocked" iphones in France is enough to pay for the travel several times over. And who would buy the unlocked iphones anyways ? the price is high as it is.
They are clearly making it available unlocked to comply with legal requirements to do so. But they price it at prohibitively expensive prices... So just face the music they dont want to sell it unlocked so just get it from with a subscription from the exclusive providers. And if you dont wana do that then just dont get a Jesus phone. You can make calls just fine on other phones ;)
NB! dont kid yourself in the EC its a free and open market, but its more of a letter of intent than reality. There a tones of companies with exclusive distribution contracts and more and more so. There are plenty of stuff you can find on the net on sale in one EC country that you just cannot get in other parts of the EC. No matter what you do.
That aside yes nobody would buy such a car, but a lot of phones have staged releases in Europe. But notbody cares cause its not the Jesus phone ;)
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