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> I'm astonished that people overwhelmingly believe this falsehood. Maybe that "falsehood" doesn't conform to your beliefs about what sort of unlocking should

> 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.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > Unlocking phones under contract is implicitly their core complaint. Perhaps, but unlocking off contract is explicitly their complaint.
  - uvdiv 14y ago
    Unlocking phones is explicitly their complaint. They didn't divide the issue into contract and non-contract phones: the White House lawyers created that separation.
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?

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.
rayiner 14y ago
> Unlocking phones under contract is implicitly their core complaint. Perhaps, but unlocking off contract is explicitly their complaint.
- uvdiv 14y ago
  Unlocking phones is explicitly their complaint. They didn't divide the issue into contract and non-contract phones: the White House lawyers created that separation.

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?