If your iPhone is carrier locked—and your carrier won’t unlock it for you—and you want to legally unlock it, time’s running out. Starting Saturday in the U.S. unlocking your cellphone will be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and a no-no. At least if you do it yourself. As you’d expect, this will be challenged in court over whether DMCA applied like this is really following the intent of the law.
Sprint – Apple’s iPhone carrier partner in the US announced their third quarter financial results earlier today.
They’ve reported net operating revenue of $7.3 billion during the quarter, an increase of nearly 6 percent year-over-year. The company also reported a net loss of $767 million and a diluted net loss of $0.26 per share.
The iPhone 5 packs in a number of audio related improvements including support for Wideband audio or “HD Voice,” a new noise-cancellation ear piece, three microphones (up from two in the iPhone 4S) and an updated speaker design.
How does this affect the call quality on the three major U.S. carriers AT&T, Sprint and Verizon?
As reported last week, Japanese carrier Softbank has acquired a 70% stake in Sprint Nextel – the third largest carrier in the US for $20.1 billion. It’s the most a Japanese company has spent on an acquisition.
Softbank will buy $8 billion in shares directly from Sprint, and another $12 billion from existing stakeholders at $7.30 per share, which works out to a premium of 27% premium from Friday’s close.
