White House Backs Petition in Support of Mobile Phone Unlocking

[Cubytus]

If someone wants an unlocked phone, they can buy an unlocked phone.

Nothing meaningful has changed.

Some phone manufacturers actually refuse to sell unlocked phone in some countries for some reason, I suppose, when an exclusivity agreements with a given carrier exists. As an example: Apple originally sold the iPhone through AT and T only, and was not available unlocked, even for other countries.
Although bought from a Canadian company, my former unlocked Nokia E7 was deemed "non-canadian device", and they replaced it when it refused to boot after 3 months with a locked Nokia N8 (very similar, on paper). I didn't bother since it was locked to the carrier I was using anyway.

Ideal outcomes:

1. All phones out of contract should become unlocked by the carrier and/or phone manufacturer WITHOUT subscriber's involvement.
2. All phones in contract should accept foreign SIM card for 30 days when not in the home country.
3. Once the phone is out of contract, carriers should be required to offer discount equivalent to monthly subsidy.

Keep on dreaming. This will likely NEVER happen her up north.

1. There's too much money to be made selling $100 factory unlocks to third parties for 3 year-old phones.
2. How do you think they'll make their money when you are travelling abroad?
3. I asked for it since I brought my own phone on a 1-year contract, and this was flat-out refused. Reason: none of the other 2 carriers are doing it, there was no reason for them to do so. Here you can only negotiate as far as the next carrier is willing to.
   As a matter of fact, this would encourage consumer responsibility: pay for an unsubsidized and unlocked phone as often as you like to replace your device, resell the old one, but leave the rest of us with all-month cheaper plans since we won't have to pay for a subsidy we won't use.

You obviously are not understanding the lack of choice we have regarding this. We are missing choice in true and fair competition. ATT is not unlocking their phones for use elsewhere (read: outside the US), while VZW and Sprint are. Sprint and VZW's policies both state that they will not unlock their phones for GSM use inside the USA. They expressly prohibit that. However, they will unlock it for overseas use.

You complain about lack of choice? Please come here and try to get a confortable smartphone plan for less than $50 a month.

ATT will not unlock it period until the contract ends; Domestic use, International use, or otherwise. We should not have to buy an unlocked unsubsidized phone for that privilege. Nor should we have to be at the whim of the carrier to dictate how we could use our phones overseas..

I strongly believe we should *have* to buy unlocked phone with a variable subsidy on it depending on the contract's length. Carriers have a right to make money, but as customers we also have the right no to be ripped.

Seeing that 75% of the world doesn't have a problem nor deals with locked phones as we do in the US, they would seem to disagree with your logic.

Your logic, as well as those inline with the carriers' logic, is flawed.

BL.

Actually, locking a phone to a carrier is a very common practice, although it never made any sense since breaking a contract will leas to a hefty penalty or a bad mark in the credit rating. Some rare places explicitely prohibit subsidizing and locking, such as Belgium, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

 

[bradl]

Moving further into this, it looks like Sens. Leahy and Klobuchar are going to introduce bills allowing unlocking to become legal.

Source

Leahy, other lawmakers look to legalize cellphone unlocking
By Brendan Sasso - 03/05/13 06:17 PM ET

Numerous lawmakers, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said on Tuesday that they want to pass legislation to legalize cellphone unlocking.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was the first to introduce a bill on the topic, formally offering the Wireless Device Independence Act.

The actions come one day after the White House endorsed cellphone unlocking and said it would support "narrow legislative fixes" to legalize the practice. The White House made its statement in response to an online petition that gathered more than 114,000 signatures.

Unlocking a cellphone allows the owner to switch the device to another company's network. The Librarian of Congress ruled last year that customers must obtain their carrier's permission to unlock their phones, even if their contract has expired.
"I intend to work in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to restore users’ ability to unlock their phones and provide them with the choice and freedom that we have all come to expect in the digital era,” Leahy said in a statement.

The Judiciary Committee, which handles copyright issues, would likely have jurisdiction over any bill to legalize cellphone unlocking.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, said she plans to introduce her own bill this week.

“Consumers should be free to choose the phone and service that best fits their needs and their budgets," Klobuchar said.

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) also said during a panel discussion on Capitol Hill that they would support legislation to legalize the practice.

Although Issa said he is "very, very supportive" of legislation, he cautioned that allowing people to break their contracts could lead to higher priced phones.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) tweeted that he is working on cellphone unlocking legislation.

"You own the phone, you should be able to unlock it," he wrote.

The Librarian of Congress based its decision on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans people from circumventing a "technological measure" to gain access to a copyrighted work.

The law instructs the Librarian of Congress to grant exemptions to the ban. In 2006 and 2010, the Librarian of Congress exempted cellphone unlocking from the law's restrictions, but the agency decided last year to allow the exemption to expire in January.

The White House does not have direct authority to overturn the decision by the Librarian of Congress, a legislative branch agency.

In its statement, the Obama administration said the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also has an "important role to play."

Speaking at the Capitol Hill event alongside Issa and Polis, Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel called the White House's statement "terrific."

She encouraged Congress to re-examine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and said the role of the Librarian of Congress in updating the law is something "that might need to get a second look."

CTIA, the wireless industry's lobbying group, has noted that many providers already offer unlocked phones.

My only point of contention is Issa's comment about prices going up. Back in 2003, I could (and did) pick up a Nokia 7210i (i, as in international.. read: unlocked) for $249.99 directly from Nokia, vs. a Nokia 7210 for $149.99 from and locked to AT&T. That $100 difference was from a MIR for existing customers, or an instant rebate for new customers. Either way, the price came out the same. So even back then, there was no difference in the price of the phone, unless it was offered with the subsidy going back to the carrier for less features (meaning, the unlock).

The same thing is happening with locked phones now. The feature (the unlock) is being held back for the cheaper price. Other than that, the price would be exactly the same; in the case now, the cost of the unlock rose at the expense of exclusivity to the carrier's network.

Something tells me that Issa has never taken a true look at the business models of US wireless carriers.

BL.