Just adding a little bit of context about AT&T: I collect used cell phones, erase them, unlock when possible, and distribute them to unhoused people through several local food shelves, which allows those people to access benefits, housing, health care, jobs, etc which would otherwise be out of reach. With AT&T I can go to their website and unlock an old phone in minutes, allowing them to use a no-cost carrier like QLink Wireless. With T-Mobile or Consumer Cellular (or many others) they just give you the finger. The phone could be e-waste for all they care.
How do they distinguish you from a phone thief? Is there some kind of check with the previous owner?
Locking the phone to a carrier is not an anti-theft mechanism. They're available in abundance on the used market with no special protections of any kind from the carriers, the only difference is that they sell for a fraction of the cost because you're locked in to the single carrier.
Maybe you're thinking of the locking mechanisms built in to Android and iOS?
It is 100% an anti theft mechanism - it prevents people from stealing phones from carriers. The scam is: - get a new iphone from tmobile that costs $30 over 2 years. - don’t pay them anything: you just got a free iphone. Tmobile is mad and won’t provide service to that handset because you stole it from them. - You open a new line with at&t and tell them you’re bringing your own phone.
Carrier locking prevents this. If someone steals your phone on the train that’s a different problem with a different solution
A) This isn't what OP was asking about. They're pretty clearly asking about stolen devices from a consumer, not consumers stealing devices from carriers.
B) Your take is complicated by the fact that there actually is a secondary market for locked phones [0], so this isn't just about people rent-to-owning a phone with an explicit installment plan.
That sounds like a speculation on a tangential benefit instead of the major consideration in locking phones. The carriers can blacklist any phone's IMEI at any point (in addition to the usual collections attempts, credit reporting etc) which achieves the same effect but better if a phone is stolen from them.
sorry if this is a stupid question, but if you don't pay for the phone don't they repossess it or something?
At least on the 4g days there was such a thing as a lost and stolen device database that was shared between providers. When the phone presents its IMEI to the network the process that checkes it’s subscriber status also checks if it’s IMEI is on that block list.
None of the carriers care if the phone is stolen, unless it's reported as stolen. They only care if it stays on their network. As a practical matter I have to work with the phone's previous owner to erase it (eg, an Apple phone that's been associated with an iCloud account, or a Samsung phone associated with a Samsung account). The carrier lock only matters after I've gone to the trouble of erasing it since I won't distribute a phone that hasn't been erased.
Reminded me of this YouTuber who bought 10 stolen iPhones for $1000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26bdjJqWdCo (prepare for hundreds of jump cuts)
So far I have never handled a stolen phone as far as I know so I don't know much about that angle. What I get are peoples old iPhone 7's that have been sitting in a drawer for a few years. They are eager to donate them but have no idea how to get their personal data off them, so the work I do is sitting down with them and walking them through the process. I would say that's about 1 hour per phone including getting to and from the donor, teaching them how to reset their iCloud account password (or Samsung account, whatever) to erase the phone. When I get a carrier locked phone I sell it on eBay and buy an unlocked phone or a bunch of chargers and cables. I'm always happy when the phone is from Verizon or was bought unlocked, but AT&T is better than most.
I imagine the phone's previous account having removed the device/cancelled service without filing any sort of loss/theft claim would help. And then a red flag would be the unlock call coming before the previous account adds a replacement phone/cancels service.
Unlocking from being bound to a cellular network.
I'm always mildly annoyed that "Unlocked" can mean three different things with phones:
* Able to be used on any carrier (i.e. no SIM lock)
* Able to be rooted/jailbroken (i.e. no bootloader root of trust lock)
* Able to be accessed (i.e. no screen lock)
This article is talking about the first one. There isn't much confusion possible in the title, especially with the dissenting carrier names highlighted.
I support this move as hopefully it will kill off the practice of carrier specific OSes.
The last carrier phone I bought was a Samsung Galaxy 4 from T-Mobile. I got a total of 0 os updates out of it because T-Mobile never released a new version of the OS (even though Samsung did). They just abandoned the phone.
At this point the most important quality of a phone to me is active security updates, so I'll never buy one where a carrier can get in the way of protecting myself from zero day exploits.
No it won't, not unless it's specifically addressed in the law.
The EU (or at least most of it) has banned SIM locks a long time ago, but carrier-branded Android phones are still a thing.
In fact, the situation here is even more pernicious, there have been news reports[1] of carriers being able to remotely lock your phone down if you stop paying the bill, or if you buy it used and the first owner stops paying the bill.
[1] Polish https://niebezpiecznik.pl/post/plus-instaluje-cos-na-ksztalt...
OS and the bundled sleazy apps and injected ad networks are a big positive cost center for american telcos.
>At this point the most important quality of a phone to me is active security updates, so I'll never buy one where a carrier
you have no ideia how little of minority this type of thinking is! :(
Yup - it's why the iPhone wasn't on Verizon for years - Verizon insisted on being able to "customize" the iPhone and Apple told them to pound sand.
It would be nice if security updates were more friendly, and not bundled with feature updates (ever). Having to go through a whole song-and-dance, only for the OTA update to fail for one reason or another: not endearing. Worst of all: they stop coming just when you've become really familiar with your phone, after a few years.
I don’t think this will make any difference—SIM unlocking is totally separate from phone firmware
Separate from phone hardware not being locked to a particular carrier, I'm especially interested in phone hardware not being locked to a bootloader.
Currently, Google Pixel hardware units bought through some carriers can't have GrapheneOS installed on them, because that carrier chose to disable "OEM Unlocking" of the bootloader.
Verizon in particular. My Pixel 3 is still more than capable hardware-wise, but it's years out of software support. I could get much more use out of it, but the bootloader is locked and Verizon will not unlock it, so it's e-waste.
Protip: Call Verizon and tell them refusing to unlock your fully-paid for phone can be considered theft in your jurisdiction and can result in criminal charges.
They'll unlock it very quickly. The techs aren't legal geniuses.
I was abroad recently, and my mother couldn't get service because her phone was SIM locked by cricket and the requisite six month period haven't passed for it to be eligible for an unlock. She had bought her phone full price from Cricket. If she had purchased the same phone for the same price somewhere else, it would've come unlocked.
Cricket once switched network types from CDMA to GSM (or whatever the terms are). That happened a couple months after I paid full price for a cricket-branded Samsung Galaxy S4, and it bricked it. It was no longer usable on cricket. It wasn't usable on any other network, either.
Cricket phones are generally subsidized
I don’t understand the justification for 60 days or for carrier locks at all. If a phone company wants to impose a requirement that a phone will not operate at all if money is owed for its purchase and hasn’t been paid, then maybe I’d be okay with this. But for some reason carriers seem to think it makes sense to prevent, say, using dual SIM mode with their SIM and a second SIM from a different provider for 2 years or 45 days or 60 days or whatever. This makes no sense.
I’m also a bit surprised that Apple plays along with this. Apple surely has the market power to just say “sorry, no more carrier locks”.
You cannot go to a AT&T store to buy a phone and then use it on tmobile’s network. That’s why there is a 60 day delay. For 60 days you pay AT&T for a service contract.
> You cannot go to a AT&T store to buy a phone and then use it on tmobile’s network.
Why not? You're paying them for the device. Why should they have a right to stop you using it how you want? Imagine if buying a car also came with a requirement to only use the dealership's petrol stations for the first year.
Because contracts that people sign when they buy a subsidized phone are not really enforceable. Folks will get a "free" phone and stop paying. There is not much that provider can do. The cars are valuable enough and when you stop paying your loan you will lose it pretty fast.
Generally they are sold at a discount, with the deal that they will make back the discount if you use their service. You can buy an unlocked phone new from the manufacturer but then you will pay full price.
Are they actually discounted? Where I am in Europe they don't do that anymore, it's usually cheaper to buy the phone from Amazon - if you can afford the up front cost.
Because the devices AT&T sells are subsidized and come with a network contract.
You can go other places to buy unlocked phones.
I don't buy carrier-locked phones anymore, personally.
Can't the operators just sell unlocked phones with monthly installments instead? The installment plan will then include free service for some amount of data/minutes. If the user chooses to switch operator, they are still bound by the installment contract to pay off the phone.
That’s how it should work. My understanding is that the carriers (probably correctly) assume that there are more people who will buy a cool phone if they don’t think about it as a short term loan – and then keep paying the same price after the phone is paid off. If they had to say “$900 in 24 payments of $50” more people would decide they don’t need the “Pro” model and the carriers would be forced to compete with the banks on financing terms.
I’ve even seen ones where the loan is “backwards”, and they’re getting more common - you pay full price up front and they give you statement credits each month!
How did we live like animals in the dark era before such innovative financial products?
There is a reason US cell rates are so high. That reason is because of lock-in.
If they did what you want, rates would fall, as would their profitability.
I expect them to fight this tooth and nail.
They really aren't expensive anymore in the US if you shop around. You can get unlimited data, talk, text for $18/mo per month from US mobile, and you can even choose which network to use Verizon, tmobile, or ATT. US mobile has a new feature that lets you switch the carrier network for $2 per switch.
People have been able to buy unlocked phones and use them without a service contract for over a decade in the US. In recent years, you can even change mobile networks from your couch with a few taps via eSIM.
The US has 3 mobile networks, and it’s a massive country with massive infrastructure needs. I imagine costs must be at least a little bit higher to offset the need for more infrastructure per customer.
I just got an idea for the opposite. Buy a phone with three years worth of service together with the phone. Extra features are extra money. 36 months x 40$ per month plus the cost of phone ($600) = $2040. Add discount for loyalty (-$800). Free phone and more.
I think the manufacturers should do the payment plans. Then carriers can be selected on basis of quality for customer over lock in effect
You can with Apple.
Or literally any phone in EU.
The point is to lock the user into a contract with the carrier. By binding the phone to there service they make it unlikely that a user will switch providers as that would need a new phone while still paying off the old phone.
That's why they'll offer these phones at low or no interest plans, so they can pull in the $50/month subscription for the years that the phone is being paid off.
What's the difference between giving away a $1200 phone in exchange for a 2-year contract which costs $50 extra per month,
compared to a plan which costs $50 less per month, and a BNPL plan attached to the carrier which costs $50 per month?
> What's the difference between giving away a $1200 phone in exchange for a 2-year contract which costs $50 extra per month
That phone is generally not given away - the only phones "given away" are generally low end. $1200 flagship phones come at the cost of a contract on the line AND a monthly payment for the device that pays for it in full.
The last 3 phones I purchased, it was a choice between
- plan + buying new phone + no contract
- plan + phone "free with plan" + increase in plan cost because of phone + 2 year contract
For one pone, the first was a clear winner. For another, it was slightly cheaper to get it with the plan (2nd option). For the last (iphone) it was the second option, but there was no increase in plan because of it.
So, the "cost" of the phone can vary a lot, and taking the time to figure it out is well worth it.
If the monthly payment pays for the device in full, what's the problem with a customer ending the service contract while continuing the monthly payments?
If the monthly payment doesn't pay for it in full, why not just make the monthly device payments $n more, and the cellular service payments $n less? That way you don't need to worry if the service plan is cancelled, because the device payments would still be due (or a lump sum payment would be due).
Because they don't make much on the device payments, as opposed to the bloated plan fees.
That is how it works in Canada now. If you cancel your contract, you have to pay the remaining balance immediately. No fees, just the remainder.
Well, kinda. Carriers can work around that by marking up the retail price so e.g. you have a $480 phone that the carrier sells for $700, or lets you buy for $20/m over a 24-month term with a promise to clear the $220 balance if you make it to the end of the term, so it's effectively a penalty if you cancel early.
Yeah, or you spread the regular retail price over X months with no interest and the carrier takes the manufacturer subsidy.
The real catch is that they typically require you to be on a high end non-BYOD plan, which keeps going up every year. I prefer to buy the device outright and minimize the plan cost.
It’s impractical to “repossess” phones so in practice the carriers wouldn’t be able to stop people from deliberately defaulting on the contract with no repercussions (they can bring it to a different carrier who is indifferent)
Yes, but let’s just say you got a 1200 device and only made the first two payments… jump to another carrier and abandon the one with the finance plan. What’s the recourse for the carrier?
People made the same argument in Canada but they changed the rules so you either get an unlocked phone or they have to unlock it upon request. Yet there has not been widespread issues of this happening. They can still ding your credit & there is only a small number of carriers so you can only do that so many times before you are going to have serious issues if you don't care about your credit or collections.
Also you can still get the phone unlocked without the carrier anyways if you really want to so it would not deter anyone who really wants to run off with the phone anyways.
Credit reporting and collections.
There's a reason carriers pull credit reports for post paid accounts and 'free' phone promos right?
Although, personally, I prefer to be on the prepaid side of the carrier. I'm not getting a promotional phone, and I'm not paying for it in my monthly rate, so if my phone works for more than two years, I'm saving money. And I don't really need to use secret handshake financing... I'd rather pay $17/month for my plan and pay for a phone when I need it.
That said, T-Mobile tried being the 'uncarrier' and charging fairer prices for service and financing phones directly, and it must not have worked as well as carrier norms because they reverted to secret handshake financing.
> Credit reporting and collections.
This has a loss rate of around 70-80% across the collections industry, which is an extremely strong disincentive to go this route since it's just highly inefficient. The high cost of the collections process is a deadweight loss upon all society.
There is no credit check with T-Mobile. In fact, even if you have bad credit, and you have had service with them for a year, you can get a phone on contract.
T-Mobile still finances phones directly and equipment payment plans are clearly separated out from service charges
I bought a car, but then decided to not make the repayments.
What's the recourse for the lender?
To be fair, car sellers have also started things like being able to brick your car if you're behind on payments. Or, for the up and coming ones, have the car just drive itself back to the dealer (Ford).
can you share a link to this for story happening?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2361657-ford-patents-ca...
Ford got a patent for the idea.
Cars are repoed when payments aren't made.
So make the device unlocked with the ability to lock it back if you fail to make the payments.
> jump to another carrier and abandon the one with the finance plan. What’s the recourse for the carrier?
Subprime auto lenders use “electronic devices to remotely shut down vehicles” [1].
Carriers could install remote management profiles on phones financed for subprime borrowers. If a borrower defaults, the loan is sold to a collector and phone erased and put in lost mode.
It isn’t pleasant. But neither is being locked into a phone plan you don’t want.
[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/03/14/car-lenders-...
The GSMA has a blacklist system. Participating carriers can blacklist a stolen / fraud / nonpayment phone IMEI and all the other blacklist members will agree to also ban that phone from their network. The problem is that people won't make payments, sell the phone for cash, and eventually the phone ends up in places (China, UAE, Nigeria, Russia, ...) that don't participate in the blacklist.
Small claims court? Inability for the debtor to get a loan for even another phone (or a used car or whatever) for a period of time?
It's messy and expensive, but perhaps it should be messy and expensive.
Currently the carrier will publish the phone's IMEI to a central blacklist, so the phone can't be used with any carrier that subscribes to the blacklist. Also iPhones can be activation blocked via Apple, which is entirely independent of the IMEI block done by carriers.
The same recourse any other lender has for a borrower that defaults.
My friend bought an android phone from AT&T. Recently she unlocked it, and she was able to use other sim cards, but the phone was still branded with the AT&T logo and loaded with its software. The phone can’t make any over the air updates because it relies in AT&T to fetch carrier specific updates… which fails when she switches providers.
I’m torn because it’s either flash unofficial firmware from the internet or live without security updates until she buys a new phone, both of these undesirable from a security perspective. The phone was just released 4 years ago and it is in good shape; but all that flies out the window because of this and related stupid practices.
I’m not sure if that is also addressed.
IMO allowing OTA updates to go through through the mobile provider was Android's biggest mistake. Their reputation and platform integrity has been irreparably damaged because of it.
Ironically, Android being an "open platform" competitor to the closed iPhone was one of its major initial selling propositions.
Andy Rubin, 2008: "A developer will be able to use it as a platform and they'll be able to develop their application on the Android platform. But also because of its openness, a developer will be able to modify the platform, make the platform better. Therefore, because the platform is open, we think Android is somewhat future-proof." https://www.cnet.com/videos/t-mobile-launches-g1-first-googl...
This is pure speculation, but is it possible that Android never would have been successful (or as successful) if they did not bow to the carriers? By taking carrier-friendly positions they built a symbiotic relationship that resulted in the carriers being happy to promote their phones.
Could she just get a friend using AT&T put their sim in her phone to have it updated?
Wow, I forgot SIM locks were still a thing. Here in the EU this has been dealt with like a decade ago or so.
most places in the world theres little sim lock, there's mandated number portability, and there are regulations from marking up the price of the phone to artificially make people breaking contract early to pay a lot. ...and there's the usa.
doesn't the US have number portability too?
https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portabilit...
Same in Canada, we got a rare regulator win some time ago, much to the chagrin of our draconian carriers. Number portability too.
Maybe they can offer a midway point. Allow additional eSIMs to be added if your main phone plan is still active. Currently this use case is impossible.
I think there is an argument for this simply based on the fact that Verizon is currently disadvantaged competitively since they already abide per a previous FCC agreement.
They're not subject to that agreement by accident.
Sure but they are still competitively disadvantaged in the landscape as a result.
Good, they shouldn't do bad shit to people for a buck
It's not just carriers that enjoy locked phones. Currently, BestBuy (the 2nd largest electronics retailer in America, after Amazon) can only sell unlocked iPhones that are at least a year old. If you want a shiny new iPhone 16 Pro that's unlocked, you have to purchase it from Apple directly.
I don't see this as Best Buy's preferred situation, rather they really need to bring people into stores and this is an agreement with carriers to give them preferential treatment regarding access to their registration systems
In what world does disallowing blatantly anticompetitive behavior constitute a significant economic change?
Ours
This might be well intentioned but it's a bad idea. See https://www.justice.gov/usao-edtx/pr/101-indicted-transnatio... for why but the gist of it is that people use fake IDs to impersonate someone, get phones on credit, and make only the first payment. Then they sell it to a wholesaler who uses a sketchy connection to get the phone unlocked, Fedexes the phone to Hong Kong, and never pays again. Having to bribe rogue carrier employees for unlocks is a big cost center for these thugs.
By automatically unlocking by default you're doing their job for them and making this crime more profitable. And the victims in many cases don't spot the fraud until months later because not everyone is constantly checking their credit report. And it's not some isolated thing either. Literally ONE phone store / wholesaler in Texas bought and exported 100 million dollars worth of stolen phones in a couple of years.
The locking is also part of why new iPhones are even affordable to middle class people in the first place.
> The locking is also part of why new iPhones are even affordable to middle class people in the first place.
Verizon has been forced to unlock after 60 days by an agreement with the FCC for years now and they still offer similar subsidies as the other carriers.
Yeah but they might just be eating higher fraud losses. It used to be pretty much instant unlocking until they asked for a waiver to make it 60 days in 2019 (which was granted by the FCC with not much pushback). So clearly some delay is important. Given their previous agreement they might not have felt they could ask for a longer wait.
Then lock out phones that are in default. This is not what carrier locks do.
The FCC is proposing unlocks for phones that are not completely paid for yet. No one is against unlocking paid for phones. The lock is basically the only recourse the carrier has for nonpayment because blacklisting the IMEI doesn't matter if the phone goes to another country. I don't think you can relock a phone once it's unlocked, and the crooks typically make 1 or 2 payments which would cover the 60 days so by the time the carrier realizes the plan is in default they're not getting their money back.
This is pretty weak. For example:
1. Carrier locks prevent dual-SIM use where one SIM belongs to the locked carrier and the other does not. This is of no value for preventing unpaid phones from being taken overseas but has plenty of value for locking paying users in.
2. Carrier locks require a communication channel from the carrier to the lock database to the phone. With iPhones, for example, the whole mechanism is mediated by Apple. The same mechanism could absolutely prevent activation overseas — instead of having a “locked to carrier X” state and an “unlocked” state, have a “locked and cannot be used for non-emergency purposes” state, an “unlocked until time T” state, and a “fully unlocked” state. And this would even be simpler: it doesn’t require any integration with the baseband processor, so it could be implemented straightforwardly on the AP.
(Note that iPhones already have a locked-to-an-iCloud-account state and can be remotely locked out, which implements 95% of this.)
So, in summary, I do not believe that the current carrier lock scheme is honestly or competently designed as a theft-of-unpaid-phones prevention measure.
100%. Basically allow the phone to be unlocked unless it goes into default, then it gets relocked until out of default.
I worked in the prepaid phone industry for 4 years so I have some insight on this. This is bad. The whole purpose of phones being locked for 6(now 12 at Mpcs) mo. is so that we are able to offer very decent phones to poor people who would otherwise not be able to afford the up front cost. Were talking about $200-500 phones being given away for completely FREE to new customers sold at a LOSS and we only HOPE to recover that money if they keep their service more than 6 months, for the $500 off iphones closer to 12. Every new prepaid customer who takes advantage of this-we are taking a massive gamble on wether or not this person will legitimately intend to pay their monthly bill, or if theyre just taking advantage of the initial subsidy and then cancelling service and selling the phones overseas or for parts. The industry consides this fraud. Frontline prepaid retailers already have to do some basic KYC on customers like checking IDs(which isnt a hard requirement) to make sure customers arent abusing the promos, because all it takes is a handful of abusers to cause serious economic harm to a particular stores which aleady operate on thin profit margins. If this change goes through expect prepaid/anonymous phones to go away(KYC and ID checking will kick into overdrive), people in poverty wont be able to get iPhones for $100 upfront anymore, expect hundreds more prepaid phone franchise stores to go out of business and thousands of people to lose their jobs, and for what? What is the benfit of this? So retail arbitragers can buy phones to export overseas at the expense of the American lower class even faster in 2 months rather than 6-12?
> people in poverty wont be able to get iPhones for $100 upfront anymore
And that's good - those who are financially constrained shouldn't be getting (enticed) into debt-traps by buying a brand-new high-priced device when really cheaper alternatives are available. Note that the article points out that Verizon already unlocks all their phones after 60 days due to a previous agreement with the FCC. So this has already been "tested" in the marketplace and Verizon hasn't wound up this business model of payment plans. The article also points out the consumer benefit of this FCC policy - once Verizon unlocks its phone, their customers have more freedom to try other services through trial eSims, while customers of AT&T and T-Mobile can't because of their (longer duration) locked phones.
Not for nothing, but those devices are generally sold interest free.
There's no functional difference between "If you're poor, you should save $50/month for the next 2 years, and when you do that, maybe then you can get that $1200 phone", versus "You can pay $50/month for the next 2 years and get that $1200 phone now", other than bias against the "financially constrained".
It's not "bias", but being financially prudent - when you are financially constrained, you don't need a $1200 phone nor do you need to subscribe to a $50/month plan when cheaper options are available. Depending on your budget, you can get a feature phone for around $50 or a smart phone for around $100, and opt for a prepaid plan (the cheapest of which starts from $15/month with limited data).
You can not fill out job applications or participate in the modern economy with a feature phone
Feature phone? What year is this where the only options are a $1200 iPhone or a "feature phone"?
A person can walk into a Best Buy today and buy a carrier-agnostic, factory-unlocked Android phone -- new, in a retail box, with a warranty -- for less than $100. No strings, no contracts, no weird stuff. It's just an item that they have for sale in their store.
(Or, FFS: The last Android phone I bought new was $64.00, including tax and overnight delivery. It came with a 60-day carrier lock, but my carrier is cheap.)
What happens when the $1200 phone breaks before it's paid off? Does the carrier replace it?
I prefer buying used phones so I don't have any experience with that...except the first phone I bought... I understood from Verizon that the phone was included in the plan. Turns out I owed $300 for a dumbphone at a time in my life where $300 was a lot more than I wanted to pay for a phone.
I replaced it with a used smartphone for $20 a year later.
So the industry sells the phones "at a loss", but it doesn't lose money on that, because it eventaully makes back the full cost and more, and if it doesn't make back the full cost it considers that "fraud". I don't understand how that's supposed to be doing poor people a favor if they still ultimately pay the full cost of the phone and the service.
UK banned carrier locked phones outright [1] and poor people can afford phones just fine.
You know people can finance just about any purchase right?
People buy cars on finance all the time without needing to buy their cars through BP and signing an exlusive gas purchasing agreement with them. There's no reason for the phone to be tied to the carrier.
Poor people offen do not have access to credit lines, it's much easier and beneficial to just have cheap products available for those that need them. There's no reason phones should cost $1000 or more anyway, they aren't worth that much.
Finland the operators sell phones, either fully up front or with even 0% financing. Then contract is entirely separate deal, it might have or not have commitment.
Might miss some "discounts", but it really is entirely workable and reasonable model.
So your argument is that a cell carrier can't be profitable without entrapping poor people into long contracts with debt.
Therefore we must legally protect the rights of businesses to exploit people.
They arent locked into any contract whatsoever at prepaid companies like MetroPCS, Cricket, Tracfone, Boost etc. These companies provide the phones as interest free loans and the businesses incur all the risk.
This argument has so many holes you could drive a Cybertruck through it.
There are ample used phone markets selling iPhones and top-of-the-line Android devices (e.g. Back Market). No one needs to be on the latest and greatest. I still use an iPhone 13 and I have friends on phones as old as iPhone 11. None of us are part of the "American lower class". Smartphones are a highly mature technology and the improvements being made year on year are now vanishingly incremental, at best.
Further, there is no shortage of financing models available to American consumers. If anything, Buy Now Pay Later might be *too* available as an option.