Has anyone....

[Bob Cat]

....Seen this yet?


Newly appointed FCC chairman calls for wireless carriers to unlock cell phones - TechSpot

 

[64MarcoV]

Yes i read it.


Better buy the phone and use sim only carriers. Or is sim only not possible in the US?

 

[breadnatty08]

Yes i read it.


Better buy the phone and use sim only carriers. Or is sim only not possible in the US?

Next to impossible. Certain carriers are CDMA, some are GSM and within those some are only certain bands which restrict what devices' radios will function on them.
This is a great step forward, but until one phone can work on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, it's not as worthwhile (though I believe the iPhone and Nexus 5 are close to it).

 

[jhawkkw]

Most devices that Verizon and Sprint sell contain gsm radios that would allow the device to work on AT&T or T-Mobile. The only issue is going between sprint and Verizon themselves due to the cdma network. However, with Verizon taking 3 months to register am unlocked device before they'll provision new sim cards for it really renders that moot. The fcc will have to step in on this as well in order to actually make the market truly open.