I envy you. In Japan, cell phones are sold only by the telco you wish to sign up with. All phones are locked to their respective networks, and unlocking them is illegal. They won't unlock your phone for you when your contract expires, and every new service plan requires the purchase of a new phone - something which only makes sense if the telco pays for most of the price of your phone, which they quit doing a handful of years ago. Even worse, you can only get any specific model of cell phone from only one carrier - the Razr only came from NTT, the iPhone is only available from SoftBank.
It's actually funny to me that I never hear or read about the draconian lockdown in the Japanese cell industry in various publications online and otherwise. Has anybody here ever heard about this on Slashdot or anywhere else?
