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Unlocking the Mobile Phone

You want to buy a car, so what do you do?

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Would you do the following?

Go to the nearest fuel station and agree to buy all your fuel from them for two years. Also agree to pay a hefty monthly fee to cover the cost of the fuel and car. You pay for fuel every month even if you don't use any, plus extra charges if you use more than the agreement states. In return, the fuel station supplies you with any car from their very limited range, all of which have been altered to reject fuel from any other supplier.

Very few people would sign up for a "deal" like the one above, because it would be so restrictive about what you can do and where you can drive, and gives you no option of changing supplier if you become unhappy with the service. Moving abroad or selling the car on as a used model would also be far more difficult.

Beyond just the consumer's point of view, the government might well be unhappy with a situation where competition is being eroded at no advantage to the consumer, and might move to ban such a "deal".

Yet every week millions of people take up a similarly poor "deal":

Go to the nearest phone network operator and agree to only use their network for two years, and also agree to pay a hefty monthly fee to cover the cost of calls and the phone. You have to pay for the calls even if you don't make any, and there are extra charges if you use the network more than the agreement states. In return the phone network supply you with a phone from their very limited range, all of which have been altered to refuse to work on any other network. A locked phone.

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