I'm tired of this carrier dependent approval process BS. It's rubbish. If I can buy an unlocked 950/XL, throw my AT&T sim in it and use it fine without AT&T throwing down some sort of ban hammer, then why can't MS just release it for AT&T 950s? Make it available to Insiders or a separate application that at least takes some effort to apply instead of just OTA. With only 1% and declining market share, what does MS have to lose?
It's way beyond time for the carriers to simply become dumb pipes.
Simple AT&T Owns the device. Once you own the device you can unlock it and be free of the hassle of waiting on their approval.
No. unlocking the device to other networks does not change the fact that the FIRMWARE is branded by AT&T, and it is an AT&T product. unlocking achieves nothing.