Your author here has extensive experience in the Canadian Telecommunications industry, from waaaay back in the day though! Back then 3-watt bags phones were on the way out, the Motorola Timeport was my favourite phone, and Palm Assistant was anything but smart. The industry worked by getting you on a contract for 3 years and they’d give you a phone for like $50. The great secret of the industry was that phones were a lot more expensive then $50… they were typically hundreds of dollars. To ensure the company made the money back on that phone, you were not only locked into that contact, the phone was programmed in a way that “locked” it to that carriers network. If you tried to take your phone to another provider, it simply wouldn’t work.
In this day and age, most consumers end up paying a lot more for the phone, to the point subsidization isn’t necessary… the HATE of contracts helped bring this about. But… phones are still locked to carriers and you end up paying to have them unlocked.
NOT ANY MORE!
Not to hard though… jokes on you.. now you pay full pop for the phone!
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has announced that as of December 1st 2017, providers are not to charge unlock fees. Over and above, they are not sell locked phones at all. Read the full text here, it covers a few more tidbits of info.
BUT, just like we’ve had teething problems with the $25 plan from Cable providers, I’m sure the big telcos’ will weasel around for quite some time. But be certain of this…. prices on phones will jump. BIGLY.
This does not bode well for the iPhone 7s or 8 coming in October.
Save up them nickels folks!
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