All cellphones in Chile must be sold unlocked

Re:All cellphones in Chile must be sold unlocked by daliusd on Thursday January 05, 2012 @08:40AM (#3428598)

There is reason. Usually business plan looks like this:

locked - monthly payment * 24 = phone price + X

X - some money to cover expenses you have as operator because you give phone to user + some money to cover amount of free minutes/MB/SMS (infrastructure is not free) + everything else is profit. Profit might be taken instantly (A) or taken from everything you use above your quota (B). (A) is most probably 0 because of competition.

Now with unlocked phone user might take prepaid card from other operator (that does not work in USA). What happens? B profit goes away. Business is about profit therefore A will grow most probably instead of being zero.

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Re:All cellphones in Chile must be sold unlocked by Mavrik on Thursday January 05, 2012 @09:09AM (#3428687)

Hmm... most subscription packages around here are of type "1000 Min, 1000 SMS, 1000 MB" or some such so B profits aren't really high.

Also pricing being competitive, there's not much difference in SMS/data/call prices outside dataplans.

That makes that claim still silly.

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Re:All cellphones in Chile must be sold unlocked by jvdh on Saturday January 07, 2012 @04:01AM (#3436605)

Fact: an iPhone in the Netherlands costs around €0 on average. You can also buy it unlocked for €750.

In Greece they have to sell iPhones unlocked, and initial average price is €699.

Easy to check yourself at apple.com.

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