UK's 3 to glue SIMs into pre-paid cellphones
It seems that UK provider 3, is having
such a problem with their handsets being sold abroad for profit that they will begin gluing SIM cards into entry-level
prepaid handsets starting this month. The SIMs will be bonded to the handset using an epoxy resin via a third party
company. No worries, if it's the same epoxy associated with those CCD sensor
failures then you'll still have a SIM-free phone for resale in oh, about 2 years.
Filed under: Handsets
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
E71 @ Feb 24th 2006 11:47AM
Weak.
S.M. Mullis @ Feb 24th 2006 12:01PM
Entering contest. Thanks.
daniel @ Feb 24th 2006 12:08PM
is this even legal?
Ragnar Schierholz @ Feb 24th 2006 12:33PM
Uhm... well, I don't see anything illegal there. If it's announced properly, then the customer knows that he buys a tight bundle of a cellphone and SIM. It's his choice to buy or not to buy.
But, it might be a stupid question, but why don't they just sell the phones in SIM-Lock mode as many prepaid bundles had (or still have) it? Is that so much easier to hack than carefully breaking the epoxy resin on this?
Oscar @ Feb 24th 2006 12:43PM
Why dont they put the glue on the keypad? That way people will make more calls!
daniel @ Feb 24th 2006 1:00PM
unlocking locked phones is very easy most phone phone shops will do it for you for about 10 obviously this only makes sense for pay as you go phones
Chris @ Feb 24th 2006 2:03PM
@#4 The phones will be both locked and glued.
Rodney Taylor @ Feb 24th 2006 3:15PM
This is a good idea
John @ Feb 24th 2006 4:42PM
This is a blatant contest-entering comment that has nothing worthwhile to offer to anyone reading it.
Mc @ Feb 26th 2006 4:21AM
But how hard exactly is it to break epoxy resin? It failed to keep my running spikes together.
Nick @ Feb 26th 2006 7:40AM
Thank goodness they're only doing it to low-end handsets, otherwise I'd be losing out on a lot of prepay sim cards ;)
Jackson @ Feb 26th 2006 3:33PM
So what happens when that pre-paid person wants to switch phones. Kinda defeats the purpose of GSM doesn't it.