That sounds quite dystopian. I did consider this possibility, but thought that it was sufficiently far in the future. Sad that this future already arrived :(
But can you elaborate on how this is enforced? Probably by requiring IMEI registration? (supposedly with a carve-out for tourists, something like "a new IMEI can be used for two weeks without registration, after that it stops working")
If it's IMEI-based, then probably you can still have an alternative phone that will use WiFi hotspot from the "certified" one. Speaking from experience here - we had a problem in Indonesia where we were unable to register a phone due to bureaucratic shortcomings, and so we bought a cheap phone to serve as a hotspot.
Inconvenient, true, but still workable.
Also, I don't know how IMEIs are implemented at hardware/software level. Maybe there are ways to spoof them somehow?
But can you elaborate on how this is enforced? Probably by requiring IMEI registration? (supposedly with a carve-out for tourists, something like "a new IMEI can be used for two weeks without registration, after that it stops working")
If it's IMEI-based, then probably you can still have an alternative phone that will use WiFi hotspot from the "certified" one. Speaking from experience here - we had a problem in Indonesia where we were unable to register a phone due to bureaucratic shortcomings, and so we bought a cheap phone to serve as a hotspot. Inconvenient, true, but still workable.
Also, I don't know how IMEIs are implemented at hardware/software level. Maybe there are ways to spoof them somehow?