Some U.S. carriers have historically been more lenient about unlocking phones than others, but starting today they are all mandated to provide unlocking once a customer’s contract is up.
Legislation put in place by the Federal Communications Commission back in 2013 takes full effect today, and carriers must comply with new policies on unlocking.
Carriers, upon request, will unlock mobile wireless devices or provide the necessary information to unlock their devices for their customers and former customers in good standing and individual owners of eligible devices after the fulfillment of the applicable postpaid service contract, device financing plan, or payment of applicable early termination fee.
Phones on prepaid plans will be eligible for unlocking “no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time, payment or usage requirements.”
Customers must also be notified when their phones are eligible for unlocking, and carriers must respond to unlock requests within two business days (a process that could have taken weeks previously, depending on the carrier). Deployed military personnel are eligible to have their phones unlocked regardless of their contractual standing.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Bluegrass Cellular, Cellcom, and U.S. Cellular are all on board. There are other mandates in the new policy that are beneficial to consumers, like a mandatory 14-day trial for postpaid plans, maps showing specific coverage a carrier offers in a certain area, and more.
Source: CTIA Wireless Association
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7 responses to “U.S. carriers must unlock cellphones, starting today”
Uh…what’s new? ATT has been unlocking my iPhone in the last 3 years even when my iPhone was only 1 year into contract. They unlocked 6 iPhone for me total and the last one was 5S in Oct 14 when I upgraded to iPhone 6. Oh, btw, my 5S was only 11 months into contract and ATT allowed me to upgrade to Next plan. I sold that 5S for $350. Great.
Having the option/ability to unlock and MANDATING awareness of unlocking is two different things.
You’re right, as far as I know AT&T had been the only carrier I know to willingly unlock iPhones (after contract). I believe Verizon has instructions somewhere on their site as well.
Yes which is why this is way too overblown. Would be very different if carriers were forced to unlock for a fee or after 1 year.
Verizon will unlock, but that doesn’t make it usable on another carrier. They modify the software to such an extent that it just can’t be used on any other carrier completely.
Executive agencies can’t put “legislation” into place.
Big deal
One Problem: there is a difference between unlocking the phone, and making it usable on another network.
I purchased an Xperia z2 tablet which, at least in the United States, can only be purchased with Verizon branding. I bought it outright unlocked without ever having a contract on it with the intention of using on the AT&T network. It was a nightmare. First of all, Verizon set it up that it can not be updated with the Sony diagnostic tools. Instead, I have to use the Verizon software update tool, but that’s only available to subscribers. That tool isn’t just needed to update though. It’s needed to run troubleshooting to fix problems. A more immediate issue is that the built-in phone dialer is locked to Verizon apps that require a Verizon subscription to use. The contact list was also replaced with a Verizon app. Pretty much every usable part of the device was replaced with Verizon apps. Even though it was technically capable of being carried by others, the software was modified to such an extent that it cannot reasonably be used on any network.
As a consequence I sold it at a loss and then purchased a UK model because it did not have any branding to begin with. I have no problems with it and I couldn’t be happier. oh, and my battery is much better too. It last twice as long without that bloatware running in the background.
Naturally, I will never purchase a US phone or tablet for as long as I live. I don’t care what they say they have to do. When I buy an unlocked device it’s just not going to work unless I buy it from another country.
And of course, with my at&t bought phone the problem there is that they forced an update on it that crippled it. AT&T pushed it, but they blamed Samsung who blamed Google who played AT&T. That’s when I rooted my phone to stop any further updates.
Another reason to never buy from a carrier. Even if I’m a customer of that carrier they take way too much liberty in what they think that they should be allowed to do with it. As long as I buy it directly from the manufacturer without branding – which, again, can never be done in the United States – it’s just not going to be fully usable. If I’m going to drop $800 on a computer I had best be able to have full use of it.
If these politicians wants to keep American technology jobs they had best consider how they will get around it, but for me it’s too late. Never again.