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Meanwhile, progress is being made to legalize cellphone unlocking. With grassroots groups leading the charge, the Obama administration announced its support for

by uvdiv 14y ago

Meanwhile, progress is being made to legalize cellphone unlocking. With grassroots groups leading the charge, the Obama administration announced its support for overturning the ban last week. I'm astonished that people overwhelmingly believe this falsehood. The White House response opposes legalized phone unlocking, except to phones already out of contract. When they say they "support unlocking", they have a different interpretation of what that means: And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. [...] neither criminal law nor technological locks should prevent consumers from switching carriers when they are no longer bound by a service agreement or other obligation. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cel... A (very) few journalists are paying attention: http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/obama-s-stance-on-unlocking-cell-phones-comes-with-a-very-big-catch-20130304 http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/obama-s-stance-on-unlock...

bostonpete 14y ago
> I'm astonished that people overwhelmingly believe this falsehood. Maybe that "falsehood" doesn't conform to your beliefs about what sort of unlocking should be allowed, but I think the quote you highlighted is a reasonable one. There are legitimate reasons to allow restrictions on what can be done with subsidized devices which are still bound by a service agreement. Your comment suggests that you're astonished that people are swayed by those reasons, which comes across as a bit insulting.
- uvdiv 14y ago
  Maybe that "falsehood" doesn't conform to your beliefs about what sort of unlocking should be allowed, I think their definition disagrees with most peoples' definitions, including the one in the petition itself: "As of January 26, consumers will no longer be able unlock their phones for use on a different network without carrier permission, even after their contract has expired." Unlocking phones under contract is implicitly their core complaint. The White House response didn't actually respond to it. Your comment suggests that you're astonished that people are swayed by those reasons, I do not think this; I think they aren't aware of the issue at all.
  - bostonpete 14y ago
    > Unlocking phones under contract is implicitly their core complaint. That's not so clear to me. You conveniently neglected to italicize "even after their contract has expired", which along with this phrase -- "decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full" -- seems to be included highlight the fact that the situation where a phone has been paid for in full is potentially different from a subsidized phone which is still being paid off. Agreeing with the petition for that subset of phones isn't failing to respond to the petition.
    - uvdiv 14y ago
      [...] which along with this phrase -- "decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full" -- seems to be included highlight the fact that the situation where a phone has been paid for in full is potentially different from a subsidized phone which is still being paid off. The petition is about both of them. Another of its complaints applies only to phones with contracts: roaming fees, Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad. (The point being that travellers' inability to deal directly with other telcos, because of the locks on their phones, gives telcos monopoly power, allowing them to charge monopolistic rates). You conveniently neglected to italicize "even after their contract has expired" I did italicize it -- that's what I was emphasising! It's double-italicized so it became normal again, according to this rule, which I infer is a bit obscure (sorry for the time-wasting!) If something within a run of italics needs to be italicized itself, the type is normally switched back to non-italicized (roman) type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_type#Italics_within_italics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_type#Italics_within_ita... The first italicisation is what I understand to be HN convention: to italicize quoted text.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        > The petition is about both of them. Another of its complaints applies only to phones with contracts: roaming fees Roaming fees are just as much a problem for locked phones that are off-contract.
  - 14y ago
- guelo 14y ago
  If I'm allowed to take a hammer and smash the phone while it's "bound by a service agreement" I should also be allowed to fiddle with the electronics. The reason it is not illegal to smash the phone is because it is your phone. The service agreement is a contract that you entered saying you will pay a monthly fee for two years independently of what happens to the phone. The phone is used by the phone company as an incentive to get you to enter the contract. In any case, breaking a term of a private contract is not a criminal act. If I stop paying my monthly phone bill they can potentially sue me in civil court but the FBI won't come knocking on my door. The DMCA criminal "circumvention" statute doesn't really have anything to do with the private contract.
  - niggler 14y ago
    "The reason it is not illegal to smash the phone is because it is your phone." And because you have to either continue paying for service or pay a termination fee. In either case the provider is recouping the cost.
    - ahlatimer 14y ago
      > And because you have to either continue paying for service or pay a termination fee. Isn't that still the case if I switch carriers?
      - benologist 14y ago
        If you terminate your agreement then you "aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation".
        benaiah 14y ago
        We're not talking about terminating an agreement. He would have to continue paying his old contract, because he said he would. Now, however, he would be able to take on a new contract with a different company, whether immediately or later on, preventing him from forever being stuck with the same carrier for that phone. It's not like a mortgage, where the bank technically still owns part of your home. It's a package deal. When you buy the phone, subsidized or not, it's yours. The US legislature has made it illegal for you to unlock the phone, despite that fact.
- bjustin 14y ago
  >There are legitimate reasons to allow restrictions on what can be done with subsidized devices which are still bound by a service agreement. Like what? As long as the customer is paying the service fee as they agreed to, the carrier shouldn't care if someone wants to use their device on another network. That means less network congestion and less necessary infrastructure, with the possible downside of fewer overage fees going to the carrier. It's not like people would be able to buy a subsidized phone, unlock it and break their contract to go with another carrier, and pocket the subsidy. The early termination fee covers that. The carriers even say so: when Verizon increased their ETF from $175 to $350 for smartphones, they cited smartphone subsidies as their reason.
  - mhaymo 14y ago
    Not related to to carrier lock-in, but Kindle Fires are sold at a subsidised price, with the money made up by advertising in the OS. This advertising can be disabled for a fee. If customers were allowed to alter their device in any way they wanted, they could simply remove the ads without paying, and this business model would not be tenable.
    - gliese1337 14y ago
      If you accept that you should be able to do whatever you want with a device that you own as a basic premise, that just means that anyone who tries to use that untenable business model is stupid and they should come up with a better one, not that we need to make special rules so that it becomes tenable. E.g., Kindles could be explicitly rented, rather than sold and subsidized, to exactly the same effect.
      - mhaymo 14y ago
        > If you accept that you should be able to do whatever you want with a device that you own as a basic premise Then you are begging the question. If there are business models which some producers and consumers choose to participate in which involve some kind of "no-tampering" clause, then clearly there is some value in allowing such deals. If you don't like them, you're free to not participate.
- Zak 14y ago
  There are legitimate reasons to allow restrictions on what can be done with subsidized devices which are still bound by a service agreement. Subsidized contracts come with early termination fees and require a credit check. Unlocking was legal for years. Was there a significant problem with people unlocking phones, breaking their contracts and getting away with not paying the fee?
mseebach 14y ago
> We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own You don't own a subsidised cell phone until your contract is out.
- larvaetron 14y ago
  A contract for 12/24 months of service has nothing to do with ownership of the phone. If you paid for it, it's yours.
  - mokus 14y ago
    That's exactly the point. You didn't pay for it until you gave them their 12/24 months of service fees (or early-termination fee).
    - pasbesoin 14y ago
      An argument against this has been that, regardless of the phone's status -- locked or unlocked -- you are bound by the terms of the contract you entered. Specifically, you are still paying the monthly fee and so paying off the subsidy on the phone (one can argue, although a true, cost-based accounting argument might have you paying off that subsidy in a smaller subset of the initial months). What unlocking then provides, is the ability to escape onerous terms and fees for additional service, such as roaming fees when traveling outside of the normal service area. If, with a GSM model, for example, you can pop in a different SIM under those circumstances, should you be able to? Given some the the shenanigans that have occurred in this industry, including outsized roaming fees, I tend to be in favor of saying "yes", to this. Or, put it this way: Competition's good. Even, or especially, within the term of rather long (with respect to technical and economic developments within the telecommunications industry) two year contracts. If, with a bit of effort and trouble, you can escape absurd roaming fees, new data cap restrictions, et al. Then, perhaps, your current, contracted carrier will feel more incentive to compete with reasonable terms and pricing.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      This is like claiming that you did not pay for your milk unless you also purchased other groceries when your local supermarket uses a loss-leader strategy.
rayiner 14y ago
They may have a "different interpretation" of what it means than you do, but it's consistent with what the article claims. The White House supports "overturning the ban," "the ban" being the categorical ban on unlocking. The fact that the opposition is narrower than you would like it to be is neither here nor there.
sinak 14y ago
Hey, petition author here. I've wondered about the White House's language on this, but my understanding of it is that the White House isn't requiring that the consumer's service agreement be complete, but rather that they not break their service agreement by unlocking. Afaik there aren't any service agreements that prevent consumers from unlocking. As such, I think they're advocating for the ability to unlock at any time.
- uvdiv 14y ago
  Afaik there aren't any service agreements that prevent consumers from unlocking. Here's one: WIRELESS CUSTOMER AGREEMENT ("Agreement") 3.0 TERMS RELATING TO YOUR DEVICE AND CONTENT 3.1 Your Device [...] You agree that you won’t make any modifications to your Equipment or its programming to enable the Equipment to operate on any other system. AT&T may, at its sole and absolute discretion, modify the programming to enable the operation of the Equipment on other systems. [discussion of SIM locks follows] https://www.att.com/shop/legalterms.html?toskey=wirelessCustomerAgreement&#38 https://www.att.com/shop/legalterms.html?toskey=wirelessCust...;

by uvdiv 14y ago

bostonpete 14y ago

> I'm astonished that people overwhelmingly believe this falsehood. Maybe that "falsehood" doesn't conform to your beliefs about what sort of unlocking should be allowed, but I think the quote you highlighted is a reasonable one. There are legitimate reasons to allow restrictions on what can be done with subsidized devices which are still bound by a service agreement. Your comment suggests that you're astonished that people are swayed by those reasons, which comes across as a bit insulting.

uvdiv 14y ago
Maybe that "falsehood" doesn't conform to your beliefs about what sort of unlocking should be allowed, I think their definition disagrees with most peoples' definitions, including the one in the petition itself: "As of January 26, consumers will no longer be able unlock their phones for use on a different network without carrier permission, even after their contract has expired." Unlocking phones under contract is implicitly their core complaint. The White House response didn't actually respond to it. Your comment suggests that you're astonished that people are swayed by those reasons, I do not think this; I think they aren't aware of the issue at all.
- bostonpete 14y ago
  > Unlocking phones under contract is implicitly their core complaint. That's not so clear to me. You conveniently neglected to italicize "even after their contract has expired", which along with this phrase -- "decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full" -- seems to be included highlight the fact that the situation where a phone has been paid for in full is potentially different from a subsidized phone which is still being paid off. Agreeing with the petition for that subset of phones isn't failing to respond to the petition.
  - uvdiv 14y ago
    [...] which along with this phrase -- "decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full" -- seems to be included highlight the fact that the situation where a phone has been paid for in full is potentially different from a subsidized phone which is still being paid off. The petition is about both of them. Another of its complaints applies only to phones with contracts: roaming fees, Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad. (The point being that travellers' inability to deal directly with other telcos, because of the locks on their phones, gives telcos monopoly power, allowing them to charge monopolistic rates). You conveniently neglected to italicize "even after their contract has expired" I did italicize it -- that's what I was emphasising! It's double-italicized so it became normal again, according to this rule, which I infer is a bit obscure (sorry for the time-wasting!) If something within a run of italics needs to be italicized itself, the type is normally switched back to non-italicized (roman) type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_type#Italics_within_italics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_type#Italics_within_ita... The first italicisation is what I understand to be HN convention: to italicize quoted text.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      > The petition is about both of them. Another of its complaints applies only to phones with contracts: roaming fees Roaming fees are just as much a problem for locked phones that are off-contract.
- 14y ago
guelo 14y ago
If I'm allowed to take a hammer and smash the phone while it's "bound by a service agreement" I should also be allowed to fiddle with the electronics. The reason it is not illegal to smash the phone is because it is your phone. The service agreement is a contract that you entered saying you will pay a monthly fee for two years independently of what happens to the phone. The phone is used by the phone company as an incentive to get you to enter the contract. In any case, breaking a term of a private contract is not a criminal act. If I stop paying my monthly phone bill they can potentially sue me in civil court but the FBI won't come knocking on my door. The DMCA criminal "circumvention" statute doesn't really have anything to do with the private contract.
- niggler 14y ago
  "The reason it is not illegal to smash the phone is because it is your phone." And because you have to either continue paying for service or pay a termination fee. In either case the provider is recouping the cost.
  - ahlatimer 14y ago
    > And because you have to either continue paying for service or pay a termination fee. Isn't that still the case if I switch carriers?
    - benologist 14y ago
      If you terminate your agreement then you "aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation".
      - benaiah 14y ago
        We're not talking about terminating an agreement. He would have to continue paying his old contract, because he said he would. Now, however, he would be able to take on a new contract with a different company, whether immediately or later on, preventing him from forever being stuck with the same carrier for that phone. It's not like a mortgage, where the bank technically still owns part of your home. It's a package deal. When you buy the phone, subsidized or not, it's yours. The US legislature has made it illegal for you to unlock the phone, despite that fact.
bjustin 14y ago
>There are legitimate reasons to allow restrictions on what can be done with subsidized devices which are still bound by a service agreement. Like what? As long as the customer is paying the service fee as they agreed to, the carrier shouldn't care if someone wants to use their device on another network. That means less network congestion and less necessary infrastructure, with the possible downside of fewer overage fees going to the carrier. It's not like people would be able to buy a subsidized phone, unlock it and break their contract to go with another carrier, and pocket the subsidy. The early termination fee covers that. The carriers even say so: when Verizon increased their ETF from $175 to $350 for smartphones, they cited smartphone subsidies as their reason.
- mhaymo 14y ago
  Not related to to carrier lock-in, but Kindle Fires are sold at a subsidised price, with the money made up by advertising in the OS. This advertising can be disabled for a fee. If customers were allowed to alter their device in any way they wanted, they could simply remove the ads without paying, and this business model would not be tenable.
  - gliese1337 14y ago
    If you accept that you should be able to do whatever you want with a device that you own as a basic premise, that just means that anyone who tries to use that untenable business model is stupid and they should come up with a better one, not that we need to make special rules so that it becomes tenable. E.g., Kindles could be explicitly rented, rather than sold and subsidized, to exactly the same effect.
    - mhaymo 14y ago
      > If you accept that you should be able to do whatever you want with a device that you own as a basic premise Then you are begging the question. If there are business models which some producers and consumers choose to participate in which involve some kind of "no-tampering" clause, then clearly there is some value in allowing such deals. If you don't like them, you're free to not participate.
Zak 14y ago
There are legitimate reasons to allow restrictions on what can be done with subsidized devices which are still bound by a service agreement. Subsidized contracts come with early termination fees and require a credit check. Unlocking was legal for years. Was there a significant problem with people unlocking phones, breaking their contracts and getting away with not paying the fee?

mseebach 14y ago

> We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own You don't own a subsidised cell phone until your contract is out.

larvaetron 14y ago
A contract for 12/24 months of service has nothing to do with ownership of the phone. If you paid for it, it's yours.
- mokus 14y ago
  That's exactly the point. You didn't pay for it until you gave them their 12/24 months of service fees (or early-termination fee).
  - pasbesoin 14y ago
    An argument against this has been that, regardless of the phone's status -- locked or unlocked -- you are bound by the terms of the contract you entered. Specifically, you are still paying the monthly fee and so paying off the subsidy on the phone (one can argue, although a true, cost-based accounting argument might have you paying off that subsidy in a smaller subset of the initial months). What unlocking then provides, is the ability to escape onerous terms and fees for additional service, such as roaming fees when traveling outside of the normal service area. If, with a GSM model, for example, you can pop in a different SIM under those circumstances, should you be able to? Given some the the shenanigans that have occurred in this industry, including outsized roaming fees, I tend to be in favor of saying "yes", to this. Or, put it this way: Competition's good. Even, or especially, within the term of rather long (with respect to technical and economic developments within the telecommunications industry) two year contracts. If, with a bit of effort and trouble, you can escape absurd roaming fees, new data cap restrictions, et al. Then, perhaps, your current, contracted carrier will feel more incentive to compete with reasonable terms and pricing.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    This is like claiming that you did not pay for your milk unless you also purchased other groceries when your local supermarket uses a loss-leader strategy.

rayiner 14y ago

They may have a "different interpretation" of what it means than you do, but it's consistent with what the article claims. The White House supports "overturning the ban," "the ban" being the categorical ban on unlocking. The fact that the opposition is narrower than you would like it to be is neither here nor there.

sinak 14y ago

Hey, petition author here. I've wondered about the White House's language on this, but my understanding of it is that the White House isn't requiring that the consumer's service agreement be complete, but rather that they not break their service agreement by unlocking. Afaik there aren't any service agreements that prevent consumers from unlocking. As such, I think they're advocating for the ability to unlock at any time.

uvdiv 14y ago
Afaik there aren't any service agreements that prevent consumers from unlocking. Here's one: WIRELESS CUSTOMER AGREEMENT ("Agreement") 3.0 TERMS RELATING TO YOUR DEVICE AND CONTENT 3.1 Your Device [...] You agree that you won’t make any modifications to your Equipment or its programming to enable the Equipment to operate on any other system. AT&T may, at its sole and absolute discretion, modify the programming to enable the operation of the Equipment on other systems. [discussion of SIM locks follows] https://www.att.com/shop/legalterms.html?toskey=wirelessCustomerAgreement&#38 https://www.att.com/shop/legalterms.html?toskey=wirelessCust...;