Recent legislation has passed that has made unlocking cell phones, manufactured after January 26th 2013, illegal in the USA. It also carries EXTREMELY steep fines.
This will definitely have an effect on the cell phone market. It will be interesting to see what changes will come about due to this legislation. There has been much discussion on the subject of personal property rights and who really owns a cell phone.
On the 26th of January this year, it became illegal to unlock any cell phone manufactured from that date and on. If you're unfamiliar with unlocking; it is a widely used technique that alters the settings on your phone and enables it to be used with other compatible cellular networks that are operated by other carriers. Now, the penalties for doing so can be up to five years in jail and a $500,000 fine. This is really a violation of property rights; and it does cause one to wonder that if you can't simply alter the settings on your phone, do you even own it at all?
This week the Competitive Carriers Association issued a press release in favor of cell phone unlocking. The Association represents over one hundred wireless carriers including T-Mobile and Sprint; supposedly, every carrier but AT&T and Verizon are represented in the Association.
A White House petition to allow cell phone unlocking had already received well over a hundred thousand signatures by February 23rd and continues to gain wide support.
The petition to overturn the legislation can be found here:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7#thank-you=p
Competitive Carriers Association's press release can be read here:
http://competitivecarriers.org/press/rca-press-releases/100000-consumers-sign-device-unlocking-petition-policymakers-must-take-action/9111286
