KDDI SIM unlocking conditions are better than docomo's

Both KDDI (PR) and docomo (PR) have announced their respective unlocking conditions in compliance with the new Somusho guidelines. At this point in time, there appears to be some major differences in the KDDI and docomo conditions. Media inquires indicate that docomo will only unlock phones for the original owner, where as KDDI has responded that it will unlock any phone, irrespective of the current owner. (This of course won't apply to stolen phones). Additionally, the rumor is that docomo will only unlock phones for three months following termination of service, even for the original owner.

However, keep in mind the following two points:

1. Neither company is actually unlocking phones under the new guidelines yet.
2. Such glaring differences in service conditions have a way of leveling out. (Remember the debacle that was Softbank's tethering and 1.2 GB data cap)

So by the time six months have passed from the release of the docomo summer lineup, it is entirely possible that docomo will match KDDI's conditions (though on the other hand this is docomo who is used to being the ones to dictate conditions to the other carriers – so we'll just have to see). There were (are) no similar restrictions on the unlocking period for docomo phones to which the old guidelines apply.

	KDDI	docomo
Cost	Free (¥3,000+tax in store)	Free (¥3,000+tax in store)
Applicable to devices released from	April 23, 2015*	May 1, 2015
Wait time to unlock	180 days	6 months
Unlock possible after cancel service	forever	for 3 months

* The "Galaxy S6 edge SCV31" on sale from April 23 from KDDI is subject to the new guidelines and will be unlockable 180 days from purchase. (This phone is also currently unlockable now from docomo but for ¥3,000.)

So is this a good or bad thing? It depends on how you look at it.

Previously, docomo was the only option for obtaining an officially-unlockable phone, and that cost money and time, lots of time if you ended up with incompetent shop staff. It was also difficult to figure out which bands a docomo phone supported. And most incredulously, unlocking your phone pretty much voided the warranty. All that crap will be finished, but there could now be a finite time window during which a docomo phone can be unlocked.

KDDI frequency bands

KDDI has already published a page showing WCDMA and LTE band support of its unlockable phones. Also, I can't help but roll my eyes at the "SAMSUNG" prefacing "Galaxy S6 Edge" ;)

As can be seen here the "Samsung" Galaxy SG Edge will work fine in most of the world except North America, where it lacks support for "GSM" carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. Maybe it'll work on EDGE, but the experience will be horrible.

What about Softbank?

As usual, there is no word at all from Softbank, and the only phones they list as unlockable are the same shitty ones that no one ever bought. They blatantly ignored the old guidelines for quite some a long time. I assume they'll comply this time but not sure when.