Will a Pixel bought through a UK carrier's plan be compatible?

jez9999

Reading the FAQ it says "Devices sold in partnership with specific carriers may be locked by the carrier, which will prevent installing GrapheneOS. This is primarily an issue with US carriers and isn't common elsewhere in the world. To avoid this, either don't buy a carrier device, or make sure it can be unlocked".

The FAQ says it's primarily an issue in the US but I'm not sure; don't UK carriers lock you in too if the phone's bought along with a carrier plan? Like, if I get a Pixel with a new Vodafone or Three plan, will that phone be able to have GrapheneOS installed on it? Is there a way I can "make sure" of this?

Johnnyloans

jez9999

Good day,

Review ofcom's announcement:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/mobile-phones/mobile-companies-now-banned-from-selling-locked-handsets

Note: this wouldn't affect devices sold before December 2021.

nologo

UK carriers are not allowed to lock you in: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54692179

jez9999

OK so to confirm it would basically be just as unlocked as one bought standalone.

nologo

jez9999 yes,it would.

schklom

Ofcom says

Some companies have still been selling mobile phones that can’t be used on other networks

this seems to be about carrier lock (to prevent you from subscribing to another network provider), not "OEM unlock" lock.

Carrier lock does not prevent you from installing Graphene, but "OEM Unlock" lock does.
Some manufacturers and carriers disable the "OEM unlock" toggle needed to install Graphene. This ofcom rule does not seem to address this type of lock.

nologo

schklom Some manufacturers and carriers disable the "OEM unlock" toggle needed to install Graphene.

Wait, carriers can disable OEM unlocking? How does this even work? Do they have an exclusive contract with the OEM in such cases?
Do you have an actual example of this? Is it a US thing?

schklom

nologo Wait, carriers can disable OEM unlocking? How does this even work?

Well yes, that's what GrapheneOS references (https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices)

Devices sold in partnership with specific carriers may be locked by the carrier, which will prevent installing GrapheneOS. This is primarily an issue with US carriers and isn't common elsewhere in the world. To avoid this, either don't buy a carrier device, or make sure it can be unlocked

Carrier-lock only means you can't use another carrier's network via your e/SIM, it is separate from the "OEM unlock" required to install GrapheneOS.

Do they have an exclusive contract with the OEM in such cases?

I don't know the details, but I think they just tell the OEM something like "we want to order phones from you at scale to resell to our customers, but make it so our team can enable and disable (make it greyed-out or not) on-demand the toggle OEM Unlock for any phone we sell", and the OEM says yes because it's a lot of money at stake.

Johnnyloans

nologo

Yeah, I believe it's primarily a USA thing. Verizon permanently turns off OEM unlocking. It's oft difficult to get other carriers to give us OEM unlocking, probably many support agents don't know this is possible.

The general advice is: don't get a phone from your carrier. It will also be locked to that 1 carrier and you can't switch.

I think the model number is different for carrier variants. A V or VZ is added to the end for Verizon pixel.

nologo

schklom yes, I know what they say and I know what carrier locking means. The example for the US is always Verizon. But the locking Verizon does is, by your definition, carrier locking. Their website says:

A locked device only works with a Verizon SIM card on Verizon’s network.

According to your explanation, this should not stand the way of installing GOS. However, from what I gather from this forum, Verizon bought devices are OEM ununlockable, so installing GOS is impossible. I truly wonder how this works. In the case of Pixels, does Google provide Verizon with specific devices which cannot be OEM unlocked?

schweizer

Carrier lock is about who can make money with communication with a given device.
OEM lock is about sellers earning money by installing bloatware.

nologo

schweizer OEM lock is about sellers earning money by installing bloatware.

Sure, but those sellers are the OEMs, right? Like Samsung deciding their Samsung X can only be used with their own Samsung version of Android and bundled Samsung apps, and making it impossible to install an alternative OS. What's confusing me is how a carrier could be responsible for this, as (at least in the US) is supposedly the case with Pixel devices.

schweizer

nologo those sellers are the OEMs, right? Like Samsung deciding their Samsung X can only be used with their own Samsung version of Android and bundled Samsung apps, and making it impossible to install an alternative

There may be huge differences from country to country. In Switzerland most people buy the phone at a reduced rate from a carrier. The carrier may be a company selling other goods or services such as cloud storage, antivirus or streaming. So they include bloatware apps for those services.

de0u

schklom Technically, my AI reply seem logical for carrier-lock: [...]. But take this with a grain of salt, it's AI.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11951-ai-generated-text-is-forbidden-with-the-exception-of-automated-translation/

If an LLM provides an answer, and the answer is checkable (e.g., includes links to credible sources and the targets of the links actually provide the supporting information) then it's possible to provide your own answer that directly cites the credible sources (at which point it's your answer). But if the LLM's answer doesn't cite sources, or the citations are bogus, or the citations haven't been checked to see whether they are/aren't bogus, then posting the LLM's answer does not move the world toward truth.

schklom

de0u Fair, my mistake.