What does Unlocked mean when buying a mobile or smartphone? | The Communication Blog

Sunday, January 6, 2013

What does Unlocked mean when buying a mobile or smartphone?

By Alan Sutton


An unlocked phone means one of two factors; you can use it with any network carrier or you can setup any application on it. With the expense of today's smartphones running to well over a hundred dollars, the phone producers and the network carriers have to offer some tempting offers to get users to upgrade their phone. The most common tactic is to offer the phone completely free or at a great discount and in return you agree to a contract in which you accept to pay a minimum sum per month. The bitter side of this deal is that although you get the newest mobile phone worth hundreds of dollars, it's locked to the service provider you agreed to the contract with. As a result, if you'd like to change carriers or move to a month by month plan when the contract expires you will have a hard time taking your phone with you.

The fastest approach to finding out if your phone is locked to a network provider is to put in a sim card from a different provider and see if you get a signal and can make calls. If you can't then you probably possess a locked phone. The 'lock' isn't a physical lock but a program deep within the operating system? This program checks that the network service provider is valid and prevents any attempt to hook up with a different provider.

It's possible, but rather dangerous, to unlock a phone either by entering a series of numbers from the keypad or hooking it up with a personal computer which has some software to erase or reprogram the core OS. You will not locate any retailers offering this service but the small, independently owned cell phone shops may offer this service for a small fee should you ask them. In spite of this, be warned that if you elect to unlock your mobile phone to be used on a different provider it probably voids the warranty. There's always the risk that it could wipe the system memory altogether and then you will now own a block of plastic and metal about as useful as a brick.

One of the reasons you might want to get the phone unlocked, and 1 of the driving reasons numerous people seek to do so is that if you're traveling in foreign countries for any period of time you want to maintain your smartphone but utilize a local sim card to save on charges on cell phone calls, text messages and data transfer. A locked phone will not provide the freedom to achieve this so the sole alternative is to get the phone unlocked.

The other type of locking is the restrictions established by the manufacturer. The Apple iPhone is infamous for this due to the fact Steve Jobs decided that he doesn't want people fooling with the OS or setting up unapproved apps. This has given rise to the expression 'jailbreaking' for the iPhone. Many customers attempt to break away and unlock their iPhone by way of jailbreaking it. Nevertheless, this voids the warranty and support.

By contrast, Google's Android phones are open source and gives the freedom and flexibility to modify everything. Coders have the freedom to create and install any type of application which most argue makes the Android a top-notch operating system since there is no need to unlock it, jailbreak it or circumnavigate restrictions which have been applied. Having said that, quite a few network carriers will lock the phone to their network and you may want unlocking services from a local cellular shop.




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