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In a rare display of bipartisanship, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed identical versions of a bill that overturns a ruling by the Librarian of Congress that made it illegal to unlock your cell phone.
The bill, S. 517, otherwise known as the “Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act” is pretty straightforward.
In fact, all the bill really does is eliminate the rule making by the librarian that found phone unlocking to be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as it regards circumvention of copyright protections. The bill also directs the Librarian to determine whether tablets and other similar devices are also covered by the new law.
The bill will now go to President Barack Obama for signing. Considering the congratulatory statement from the White House, we can assume the president will sign the bill.
The legislation did not do what some have feared and make bulk unlocking illegal, which would have complicated the practices of phone recyclers, including police departments and advocacy groups that provide free phones to abuse victims and others who need to call for help. An article provided by the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) explains some of the thinking of the Senate, when it started this particular ball rolling.
But just because phone unlocking is about to become legal again, that doesn’t mean you can rush out and start unlocking everything. First, if you’re under contract to your carrier for the phone you bought, then your carrier can keep the phone locked until you pay for it. While some carriers will still unlock your phone for you after you’ve had it for a while, they’re not required to do this until you’ve paid for it.
The law also doesn’t necessarily cover tablets, although it’s clear from the language of the legislation that Congress wants to include them. The reason the situation regarding tablets is unclear is because the initial LOC rule making didn’t specifically include them.
That’s why the law specifically directs the Librarian to make the necessary determination, while also making it clear that this is what Congress wishes. You can assume that the Librarian will take note of the legislation and decide that it applies to tablets as well as phones.
Unfortunately, statements by both Congress and the White House make it clear that neither body really understands mobile technology. For example, the White House statement says that the new law will allow owners of phones to take them to whatever carrier they want, which of course they can’t do.
The reason is that just because it may be legal to move a Verizon phone to T-Mobile, for example, that doesn’t mean you can do it.
U.S. Mobile Phone Unlocking Bill Doesn’t Deliver Instant Freedom
Despite the legalities, there are technological reasons why you’re likely going to be stuck with your carrier.
Verizon and Sprint are both Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) carriers, and they don’t share much in the way of frequencies. So while one company’s phone may work on the other company’s network, you may find that you won’t get much coverage for anything beyond voice.
On the other hand, there’s a lot more commonality with GSM carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile due to the global nature of GSM, which will mean that switching between those carriers will be easier. But their Long Term Evolution (LTE) bands aren’t all the same, so even there, it’s hit or miss. And, of course, some Verizon phones are world phones, so they will also work on GSM.
What’s probably more important is that the unlocking bill will allow consumers to move their plans to resellers and regional carriers that may be much less expensive than the national carriers. One such carrier that seems to be able to work with pretty much any phone is Net10 Wireless, which is a subsidiary of TracFone, which in turn is part of América Móvil, the Mexican wireless company that’s expanding globally.
Of course, the reason that Net10 can work with nearly any phone and carrier is that they simply resell existing services using their own plans. But the bottom line is that in many, if not most, cases, existing wireless customers can save a lot of money by making such a switch, if they can unlock their phones. Now they can.
The chances are pretty good that making unlocking totally legal will result in increased pressure on the big national carriers. The “UnCarrier” attacks by T-Mobile have already resulted in some significantly cheaper choices from the big carriers, and while they have yet to match T-Mobile’s prices, they’re coming closer. Now that there are fewer impediments to changing networks, you can expect costs to drop, but probably not overnight.
The reason costs won’t drop immediately is that many wireless users are still being held captive by those infamous two-year contracts that provide subsidized phones at very low prices. Those contracts make terminating a contract to change carriers very expensive, and while T-Mobile already offers to pay off your contract, not everyone is ready to change to T-Mobile.
You can expect to see a growing number of offers to encourage wireless customers to change carriers as unlocking becomes easier, but don’t expect it ever to be easy as long as you’re in the grip of one of those contracts. Regardless of the law, your carrier wants your money, and that’s not going to change.