In some jurisdictions, such as Canada,[5] Chile,[6] China, Israel,[7] Singapore,[8] and the United States[9] it is illegal for providers to sell SIM locked devices.
These handsets can still be unlocked by online services that have access to either inside people with the manufacturer or with the telecom networks, or they need to be connected to the computer with a cable where specific software will bypass the security and SIM-unlock the phone.
Sometimes this is done by advanced calculations to bypass the security the official way and other times using exploits or overwriting parts of the firmware where the lock status is kept, and often even recover a phone that is bricked or completely damaged in the software sense.
In extreme situations physical access to internal hardware via in-circuit debugging may be utilised (for example, via JTAG headers on a circuit board).
Network operators in many industrialized countries are not bound by law to give the phone unlocking code to subscribers even after the expiry of the contract period.
While the act of box breaking is legal, some businesses are also engaging in illegal activities such as exporting the box-broken phones to other countries, to sell as grey market goods without paying import duties (known as carousel fraud) or substituting counterfeit batteries and chargers.
This service requires that individuals who wish to unlock a handset provide their IMEI number and sometimes also country and operator details to the company, either via email or a website.
For some brands such as Nokia and Samsung various services also offer special remote-unlocking software with instructions, where a cable is needed to remove the SIM lock at home.
Many countries listed below have some form of SIM-locking laws specifying the period of SIM locking and the cost of obtaining unlocking codes.
[citation needed] One law professor, Dale Clapperton, gave a talk stating that bundling iPhone and mobile phone service could be violating the Trade Practices Act.
[citation needed] This leaves Canada, China, Singapore, and Israel as the only countries in the world that forbid SIM locking and contract/phone bundling outright.
[22] After the implementation of this rule, Bell Canada initially refused to offer unlocks for users who were not customers of the carrier (in contrast to Rogers and Telus), but reversed course in February 2018 due to public backlash.
For example, an iPhone 6 was designed to be capable of supporting LTE FDD, LTE TD, CDMA, and WCDMA technologies but China Mobile reached a deal with Apple to create a special model for China Mobile in addition to the off-contract retail model sold by Apple and third party vendors with the capability to support LTE FDD, CDMA, WCDMA, which are the technologies not used by China Mobile, disabled, effectively making such special contract model incompatible with the 3G and 4G networks of other carriers even though such phones are never locked.
[28] In Croatia, for devices bought on contract, the mobile operator must provide the unlock code on the user's request free of charge.
[citation needed] Although there is no specific law preventing SIM locking, as of December 2009 Ecuador's two biggest carriers, Porta and Movistar, unlock phones previously sold by them, without charge.
As noted above, this directive has been successfully applied in Belgium to overturn that country's previous ban on bundling phones with contracts.
Under Finnish law, a tie-in sale is defined as selling the equipment for a discounted price contingent on the consumer also acquiring a new service contract from the seller.
No later than three months after the subscription of the contract, the mobile operator must "systematically and free of charge" provide the subscriber with a procedure to deactivate the SIM lock.
Proposal to shorten the time that operators may charge a fee for removing the SIM lock prior from six-month to the three-month deadline.
They began to provide unlocking codes for that phone after they were sued by Vodafone and a temporary injunction was issued requiring T-Mobile to do so.
In Honduras, there is a general law applicable to all consumer relations engaged in the national territory and provided by natural or legal persons, public or private.
This law is called "Ley de Proteccion al Consumidor"[38] or "Consumer Protection Act of Honduras", approved by Legislative Decree No.24-2008, and it regulates the activities of any goods and services providers stating the principles that they must follow in order to operate in this country.
Article 20 of this law states the prohibitions that sellers are obliged to abide when selling a good or providing a service to people.
This along with other factors, encouraged competition among network operators and brought down the mobile phone call charges in from the initial ₹32 (US$0.75) in 1996 to ₹0.50 (US$0.005 approx.)
[52][53] Following speculation of a new lower cost, MNVO of Telecom XT details were leaked regarding the Skinny Mobile Network, which would SIM lock handsets.
[citation needed] Ufone has started SIM Locking with the release of its new smartphone named Smart U5 developed by Emitac Services, UAE.
The same article dictates the customer can request the unlock code for free after 12 months from the purchase date, no matter if the contract is still in place.
A 2006 study sponsored by the Portugal regulator, ANACOM, on handset subsidies and SIM locking concluded that there are no special regulatory concerns on offering subsidized SIM-locked equipment in exchange for signing a contract tying a customer to a particular network.
[citation needed] Thailand is also another country that forbids outright SIM locking and as a result, no phones are sold in the market are subsidized by carriers.
As of April 2011 O2 will unlock any of their pay-monthly phones for free, even if they're still in contract, with the exception of handsets made exclusively for them, such as their Palm devices.