Wouldn’t it be nice if when you purchased a smartphone you weren’t forced to remain with a particular carrier because your chosen device is carrier locked? Well if you happen to live in Chile you are one of the lucky ones because as of the 16th of this month Chile is apparently banning the sales of all carrier locked phones.
In a move that probably the rest of the mobile world envies, according to the guys over on Phone Arena by way of The Verge, Chile has announced that as of the 16th of January all mobile phones sold in the country must be unlocked for use on any carrier.
Apparently Chile joins Singapore who was amongst the first countries to outlaw carrier locked mobile phones with Israel also banning carrier locked handsets back in 2010.
Subtel, Chile’s telecoms regulator announced their plans that are apparently part of an effort to make mobile numbers more portable in the country via their Twitter account.
Here in the UK and over in the US unlocked smartphone are available although not with every handset, and is one of the main reasons hackers use unlocking and jailbreaking. Initially the iPhone 4S wasn’t available as an unlocked device until a month or so after its initial release.
Perhaps eventually other countries will take that step to outlawing carrier locked handsets and give more freedom of choice to the customer, we can only hold that it will be worldwide eventually.
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