Basics Locked vs. Unlocked: Opening Up Choice
By CYRUS FARIVAR The New York Times November 1, 2007
NOKIA, the world's largest maker of cellphones, has been running ads that read, "Open to Anything" and "Unlock your potential."
The company wants cellphone buyers to know that its phones can be used with whatever carrier they choose, unlike a certain other phone that has been getting considerably more attention lately: Apple's iPhone. That phone is locked, meaning it is intended to be used with AT&T, the only carrier Apple chose in the United States.
A Nokia spokesman says that the advertising campaign is not aimed at the iPhone. "A lot of people interpreted it as a shot at another product," said Keith Nowak, a Nokia spokesman. "It wasn't its intention, to be honest."
Indeed, most phones sold in the United States are locked into the carrier that sold them. Nearly all mobile phone providers discount the price of the handset in exchange for a fixed contract. But even some phones sold at full price without contracts remain locked.
But that has not stopped many from unlocking phones, either with the permission of the carrier or, as is more commonly the case, without it. Apple said that nearly one of every six iPhones sold in the United States was bought with the intention of unlocking it.
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