Any issue with buying a phone on the continent and using here?

[Wendelius]

I was in Belgium over Christmas to see the family and thought I'd doublecheck on what I thought to be the case.

"Are phones here locked to your provider?" I asked the family. And I got a blank look back. Belgium and France seem to consider it illegal to lock you into a provider and thus all phones are unlocked by default. When you want to change, just switch the sim.

This kind of makes it attractive for me to get a PAYG phone there, use the sim when I take a trip to Belgium and use a UK sim when I'm over here. No unlocking to worry about is great.

Apart from the charger plug adapter needed, can you think of any issue with buying my next phone over there?

Wendelius

[pete00]

I thought they could be Sim locked from France?
I have a Nokia 5700 which is on the SFR network and it won't take Sim cards from any other provider.
Plus, if you look on ebay, there are sellers that provide codes for unlocking phones on the SFR network.

[Wendelius]

I thought they could be Sim locked from France?
I have a Nokia 5700 which is on the SFR network and it won't take Sim cards from any other provider.
Plus, if you look on ebay, there are sellers that provide codes for unlocking phones on the SFR network.

Ah, interesting. France I only know through hearsay when the iPhones came out and they had to provide an unlocked option by law (although more expensive in the case of the iPhone). But maybe France is more restrictive than I thought.

Wendelius

[pete00]

Did a bit of searching and found this (from intomobile.com):
France passed a law in 1998 that requires all wireless carriers to offer mobile phone unlocking services upon request - for a fee in the first six months, and then free after that. A second law also requires wireless carriers to sell locked and unlocked versions of their mobile phones.
Clearly, Apple’s business model is at odds with France’s wireless regulations. Apple does not want any Apple-unlocked iPhones floating around Europe.