For decades there has been endless policy wrangling over whether “unlocking your phone” (removing restrictions allowing you to take the device with you to another carrier) should be allowed. Giant carriers have generally supported onerous phone locks because it hampers competition by making it harder to switch providers. Consumer rights groups and the public broadly support unlocked devices.

  • @Wilzax
    link
    English
    13 months ago

    Phones are also small computers, and while its wireless chipset may only be compatible with certain carriers, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be allowed to install whatever I want on it.

    • @over_clox
      link
      English
      13 months ago

      Try a Galaxy S5…

      Antennas are proprietary to different networks.

      • @Wilzax
        link
        English
        1
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        The antenna isn’t chipset agnostic? TIL. I normally work with radio transmitters for LoRa and Bluetooth where the antenna is just a wire connected to a radio chipset module so I assumed 4g/5g were the same

        • @over_clox
          link
          English
          13 months ago

          Yeah, I don’t think there are many models of phones with proprietary antennas, but there are, or at least were a couple models.