iPhone解锁难题打击二手市场.

2017-08-14 作者： 279阅读

　　iPhone解锁难题打击二手市场

　　The Mystery of the iPhones That Won&apost Unlock

　　Louis Ashner ran a brisk business buying used phones from Americans and reselling them in China. But one day in early October, it just stopped. 阿什纳(Louis Ashner)专门从事二手手机销售，在美国收购二手手机然后在中国转售。这门生意的销路一直不错，但10月初他不得不停止业务。

　　Mr. Ashner, who owns Side Street Technology Inc. in Baton Rouge, La., said he was suddenly unable to &aposunlock&apos AT&T Inc. versions of the iPhone in bulk so they could work on other networks. 阿什纳是Side Street Technology Inc.的老板。该公司位于美国路易斯安那州巴吞鲁日。他说，他突然发现无法批量解锁美国电话电报公司(AT&T Inc., 简称AT&T)版的iPhone，这样一来，这些手机就无法在其他网络内使用。

　　He doesn&apost know the cause, but he knows the fect. No one in China wants an iPhone that only works on AT&T. His business collapsed and is in the process of closing its office and liquidating inventory at a loss. Bloomberg News AT&T等运营商提供的基于GSM网络技术的iPhone交易价格较高。他不知道无法批量解锁的原因，但他很清楚这件事的后果。没有一位中国消费者会想要一部只支持AT&T网络的iPhone。他的生意就这样垮了，公司关门停业，库存亏本甩卖。

　　&aposThe market is gone,&apos Mr. Ashner said, who said he was on track for $1 million in revenue this year. &aposWe are closing up.&apos 阿什纳说，整个市场没了，我们准备关门。他说，今年公司的收入原本有望达到100万美元。

　　Business owners throughout the U.S. used-smartphone market are reporting the same problem, and like Mr. Ashner none of them knows exactly what went wrong. 整个美国二手智能手机市场的经销商们报告了同样的问题。与阿什纳一样，他们也不知道问题出在哪里。

　　Whatever changed, AT&T appears to be at the center of it. The carrier accounts for 48% of the iPhones now operating in the U.S., according to comScore, and the technology it uses is compatible with most of the world&aposs networks. That gives its phones the widest resale market. 无论如何，AT&T似乎身处这一切的中心。根据comScore的数据，AT&T卖出的iPhone数量占美国使用中的iPhone总数的 48%。该公司采用的技术与全球其他大多数运营商的网络兼容，所以AT&T版的iPhone一直是二手智能手机市场上最受欢迎的。

　　Wholesalers had long been able to get AT&T&aposs iPhones unlocked on a mass scale by specialized services, many working out of Asia, for relatively little cost. That changed about a month ago, when people in the industry say AT&T suddenly made it harder to unlock phones on its network. 长期以来，批发商一直可以通过专业化的服务批量解锁AT&T版的iPhone，而且解锁成本很低。但大约一个月前情况开始发生变化，业内人士称，AT&T突然加大了解锁其网内iPhone的难度。

　　&aposAT&T was very lax for a long time in regards to mobile phone unlocking. If they said no, a third-party unlocker would be happy to unlock any AT&T iPhone or other device for a very decent price,&apos said Will Strafach, who runs a Connecticut-based unlocking company called ChronicUnlocks. &aposAT&T is really taking action and coming down hard.&apos 经营解锁服务公司ChronicUnlocks的斯特拉法赫(Will Strafach)说，AT&T在手机解锁方面的管制一直很宽松，如果它收紧政策，第三方解锁服务公司仍很乐于以相应的价格提供AT&T 版iPhone或其他设备的解锁服务;现在AT&T动真格了。ChronicUnlocks的总部设在康涅狄格州。

　　An AT&T spokeswoman said the company hasn&apost changed its policies for unlocking phones for individual customers, but wouldn&apost discuss the subject of bulk unlocking by third parties or whether it had made any changes there. An Apple Inc. spokeswoman declined to comment. AT&T的发言人表示，公司并未改变针对个人用户的解锁政策，但不愿谈论第三方批量解锁问题，也不愿透露公司是否做出了任何调整。苹果公司(Apple Inc.)的发言人不予置评。

　　In mid-October, AT&T did stop accepting unlocking requests over the phone and now requires that they be made online, a person familiar with the matter said. The process is only open to current and former customers, who must enter their email addresses and last four digits of their social security numbers, among other information, according to AT&T&aposs website. 据一名知情人士称，从10月中旬开始，AT&T不再受理电话方式的解锁请求，要求手机用户在网上申请解锁。AT&T网站显示，公司只受理现有用户和前用户的解锁申请，在网上操作时，用户必须输入他们的电子邮件地址、社保号码后四位数字等信息。

　　The mystery underscores how shadowy the used-phone market remains even as it enjoys explosive growth. Apple Inc., AT&T and others have leapt into the business this year as a way to help their customers trade up to newer models more quickly. 解锁谜团表明出二手手机市场仍处于阴影中，尽管该市场正呈现爆炸式增长。苹果公司、AT&T以及其他一些运营商今年都推出了解锁服务，以帮助客户更快地对手机升级换代。

　　Those companies can unlock phones one at a time as their customers turn them in. But much of the business is still done by wholesalers, many of them small, for whom unlocking is a bigger hurdle. 上述公司也提供手机解锁服务，但客户每次只能申请解锁一部手机。所以大多数解锁工作仍是由批发商完成的，其中许多是小型批发商。对这些批发商来说，现在解锁手机的难度更大了。

　　Some simply sell the locked phones to buyers in Asia, where a separate industry of bulk unlockers has blossomed. Many people in the used phone business don&apost know exactly how it works. One wholesaler based in Hong Kong said her company would email a list of hundreds of phone identification numbers to a contact in China, and the phones would be quickly unlocked. 一些公司只是将未解锁的手机出售给亚洲买家，亚洲另有一个兴盛的批量解锁手机的行业。许多从事二手手机业务的人并不知道手机到底如何批量解锁。一位香港二手手机批发商说，公司会把数百部手机的序列号用电子邮件发给在中国内地的一个联系人，之后手机会很快被解锁。

　　With the scarcity of mass unlocking, the price to unlock an AT&T iPhone has gone from $1 or $2 per device to as high as $100 in just a month, according to people in the industry and companies that still offer the service. 据业内人士和仍提供解锁服务的公司透露，由于很难找到批量解锁手机的服务，短短一个月内，解锁一部AT&T网内iPhone的价格由1至2美元飙升至高达100美元。

　　Online device trade-in company EleGreen now advertises it will pay customers an extra $40 if they bring in their phone already unlocked. 电子设备网上折价交易公司EleGreen目前打广告说，如果卖家提供的手机已经解锁，他们会把收购价格提高40美元。

　　Buying and selling used smartphones is a straightforward process in much of the world, where devices can be used interchangeably on any number of networks. But in the U.S., smartphones often come &aposlocked&apos to the selling carrier&aposs network. 在全球许多地区，买卖二手手机非常容易，因为手机可以随意转换运营商。但在美国，智能手机通常与销售该手机的运营商的网络锁定。

　　Hackers can unlock phones, but their work can often be reversed by carriers. The gold standard is the so-called factory unlock, where carriers or Apple make the change through their systems. 黑客们能够解锁手机，但运营商们经常采取举措令解锁失效。最彻底的做法是所谓原厂解锁，就是运营商或苹果公司用自己的系统进行解锁。

　　The locking is an outgrowth of the subsidy model for phone sales in the U.S. Carriers cover the bulk of the cost of devices like the iPhone then recover their outlay over two years via monthly service fees. Locking makes sure customers stick with the service until their obligation is cleared. 对手机上锁是由于美国运营商为其销售的iPhone等手机提供了高额购机补贴，指望用之后两年每月的服务收费挽回成本。手机上锁能确保用户使用该设备直至合约到期。

　　Carriers like AT&T and Sprint Corp. have long agreed to unlock phones once their customers complete their service agreements. Verizon Wireless phones generally come already unlocked. AT&T和斯普林特(Sprint Corp.)等运营商此前一直都同意用户在合约结束后解锁手机。Verizon Wireless销售的手机大多已经解锁。

　　The inability to unlock AT&T iPhones has turned the relative values of used iPhones upside down. For years, phones like AT&T&aposs that run on GSM network technologies have traded at a premium, because they work on more networks around the world than phones used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint.AT&T网内iPhone无法解锁导致各类二手iPhone相对估值发生变化。此前，AT&T等运营商提供的基于GSM网络技术的iPhone交易价格较高，因为相比于Verizon和斯普林特等提供的手机，此种手机能适用的全球其他电信网络的数量较多。

　　Last November, used-phone company Gazelle Inc. was offering $205 for a iPhone 4s with 16 gigabytes of storage a year after its launch, compared with the $160 it was offering for Verizon&aposs version of the same phone. Now, for a similar, year-old iPhone 5, Gazelle offers $230 for the AT&T model and $250 for the Verizon model. 去年11月，二手手机公司Gazelle Inc.为在AT&T入网一年的16GB容量iPhone 4S开出的收购价为205美元，在Verizon入网的同类手机则为160美元。而目前，Gazelle对AT&T入网一年的iPhone 5开出的收购价为230美元，Verizon版为250美元。

　　&aposWhen a carrier makes unlocking more difficult or more costly, it takes money out of the consumer&aposs pocket and makes reselling phones more of a hassle for the consumer,&apos Gazelle CEO Israel Ganot said.

　　Gazelle首席执行长加诺特(Israel Ganot)说，当一家运营商让手机解锁变得更困难或代价更高时，会使转售手机变得麻烦，遭受损失的是用户。