[mythtv-users] State of blu-ray support?
Michael T. Dean
mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Tue Nov 19 02:13:08 UTC 2013
On 11/17/2013 02:58 PM, Bert Haskins wrote:
> The same little dance is now going on over phone unlocking.
> I'll bet we get screwed on that one also.
Not at all. The government is standing up for the consumer saying that
the cell phone companies need to give customers unlock codes (so they
can take the phone off network***) when the consumer has paid off their
phone's "lease to own" plan.
The cell phone companies say that they will do so, but they can't inform
customers when they are eligible to receive a free unlock code without
additional cost, so those customers should keep track of their own
eligibility.
The government/rights groups say that the program is essentially useless
if the customer isn't notified immediately upon eligibility.
Therefore, you will eventually see a new fee on your cell phone bill
allowing the cell phone companies to recoup costs to track eligibility
for unlock codes and automatically inform consumers when they attain
eligibility.
So, it's a win/win/win/win scenario.
The consumer wins because they get the unlock code for the hardware they
finally purchased through the 22-month payment plan.
The government wins because they stood up for the consumer and forced
the mean cell phone companies to give unlock codes to the rightful
owners of the cell phones (once they finally pay them off).
The rights groups win because they convinced the cell phone companies
that customers wouldn't be aware of their right without a message
(buried in a bill that the customer doesn't even read) telling them when
they're eligible to get a free unlock code.
The cell phone companies win because they get to charge a fee to give
out free unlock codes.
(And, of course, the 99% of consumers--the vast majority of whom won't
understand the technical details of unlocking, let alone cross-spectrum
compatibility issues, manual baseband updates, ...--wins because they
get a free unlock code that most will never use/know how to use. And
the 1% of consumers who actually want to unlock their phones and are
willing to put up with spectrum/compatibility issues win because they
can finally buy a phone on a 22-month payment plan and unlock it at the
end instead of buying an unlocked phone outright (and at lower cost, if
you know how to choose the right plan), and they don't even have to
remember to mark their calendars.)
Oh, and the consumer wins because they get to use that cell phone on a
different network from the one they rented to own it to check MythWeb to
set a recording rule for the show they see advertised on a billboard in
the city. (Had to bring this back to MythTV topic, somehow.)
Mike
*** Of course, even though "4G" will be LTE for all US carriers (at
least TTBOMK), the huge number of different bands in use by the
different carriers mean that the vast majority of phones will be
severely limited in functionality/performance if taken to other networks.
More information about the mythtv-users
mailing list