September 2017
The CRTC ruling regarding unlock fees and sales of locked phones has been discussed at length on this and other forums, but while on the phone with a Fido supervisor yesterday, he told me that after Dec 1 2017, Fido will still sell their phones locked, but the unlocking fee will be $0 (subject to the std 90-day wait).
Could this be true? I am recently off contract, and was planning to wait until Dec 1 to upgrade to avoid having a locked phone.
Any thoughts? I thought the CRTC ruling (or it's press coverage) was pretty clear.
TIA
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September 2017
Hello Bamathieu,
Welcome to the community!
Personally, I think phone inventory will likely determine what happens come December 1st, 2017. It will be up to the phone manufacturers to provide unlocked phones/devices to the mobile providers. Currently, with the exception of a few phones/devices, factory unlocked phones/devices will lock to the provider of the first SIM used. That needs to change at the manufacturer level.
It's unlikely that any phone inventory left-over after December 1st will be returned to the manufacturer for them to remove the lock. Rather, those remaining phones/devices would still lock to the mobile provider but will have to be unlocked free of charge.
I am doubtful that the phones purchased after that date will be subject to the standard 90-day wait as it is clearly stated that all newly purchased devices be unlocked.
My two cents..
Cheers
September 2017
Thanks for the response. That sounds reasonable, but I'd like confirmation of the policy on this to enable me to make an informed purchase decision.
September 2017
Hello @bamathieu,
More info would be made available come closer to that date, you can keep an eye on this blog post here for updates.