> We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own
You don't own a subsidised cell phone until your contract is out.
You don't own a subsidised cell phone until your contract is out.
But you also own obligations to pay back a loan and interest to a bank.
Technically you have a credit and debit sheet, a new asset plus a new liability.
The distinction is that those are contractual conditions. If you fail to carry comprehensive insurance on your vehicle, they may repossess it etc. according to the contract, but the police don't come to arrest you.
Every minute of hassle and every unreasonable fee holds back the rest of society like broken windows.
2) It's not the same insurance. The law typically requires you to carry liability insurance, which covers third parties you harm. The car dealer wants you to insure against damage to the car, which the law may not require you to insure against.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/01/saab-pulls-the-plug...
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.
For the last decade I've bought my phones unlocked and subscribed to a monthly plan that I can leave at any time. That means paying full price for the phone at the time of purchase, which is a lot more than the discount prices used to tempt you into a contract.
Look, just because it's in your pocket and you get to use it as soon as you leave the store does not mean you own it.
So who owns it? When last I checked, there was no line of credit, I am allowed to sell the phone to someone else without informing the carrier, and I am responsible for repairing any damage or replacing the phone if it is rendered non-functional. It sounds like I paid the carrier's price, signed a contract, and then owned the phone (while being locked into a contract).
There is more to this than just the carrier's contract. Let's say I travel to another country, and I want to pay for a phone plan there so that I do not have to pay roaming charges. I'll need to unlock my phone to do that...and now by law I cannot (at least not here in America). For that matter, suppose I am here in America and I want to have two contracts with two different carriers on the same phone...once again, the law stops me. This is, plain and simple, a law that protects the carriers' business model in ways that other businesses are not protected.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the free market is relevant here. It is not a free market when some players get special privileges and protections not available to other players. Cell phone companies get lots of special privileges, and this is just one more to add to that list.
The differences from leasing a car are for obvious reasons. If you don't make the payments on a car, a repo guy comes along and takes your car away. Bit difficult to do that on a phone, so they hit you with an early termination fee instead and you agree to it as part of the contract terms.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the free market is relevant here. It is not a free market when some players get special privileges and protections not available to other players. Cell phone companies get lots of special privileges, and this is just one more to add to that list.
I didn't mention the free market, but since you bring it up, the players within the phone industry have similar privileges. Saying that they get different privileges from, say, auto retailers is pointless, because they're not int he same market. Although I'm no fan of the major cell companies, I could point out that they also bear the burden of paying billions up front for lease of spectrum, whereas manufacturers of cars just have to get the thing running and into the hands of the would-be driver, who then pays over time for road use through taxes on fuel etc.
You want to unlock the phone overseas, then do it overseas where you won't be subject to US law. You want to have two contracts on the same phone, the second one is going to be month-to-month by definition because the second carrier has no property interest in the phone. you can easily get out of your contract by paying the ETF.
As I said elsewhere, I don't like these contractual provisions either, which is why I don't enter into such contracts. I do own my own phone, because I paid for it. This is what people in other parts of the world do, because the rock-bottom prices (with contract!) are not on offer in most other parts of the world.
I suppose that would be true if we exclude all the electronics shops that could make a business charging a small fee to unlock phones.
"I could point out that they also bear the burden of paying billions up front for lease of spectrum"
Which actually helps the cell companies more than it hurts them, since it basically rules out a large number of potential competitors. A coffee shop can run a wifi network, but that gets extremely limited bandwidth and extremely limited power. Amateur radio operators have fewer restrictions on power, but are completely tied up in other regulations.
Large areas of the United States are served by only a handful of cell carriers, whose service is overpriced and mediocre at best. There are two possible solutions to that situation: abandon market-based solutions and create a monopoly that is heavily regulated to protect consumers from abusive practices, or embrace market-based solutions and reduce the barriers to competition (say, opening cell phone bands to unlicensed secondary users with established rules for settling interference disputes). Right now, we are not really pursuing either strategy, and in the mean time we are falling behind other countries in terms of wireless deployment.
"You want to unlock the phone overseas, then do it overseas where you won't be subject to US law"
OK, sure, but that just means that American businesses that might unlock phones (say, businesses at international airports) cannot exist. It still helps the cell carriers' business model, just not as much as it might have (it reduces the convenience and introduces potential language barriers).
"You want to have two contracts on the same phone, the second one is going to be month-to-month by definition because the second carrier has no property interest in the phone"
Neither carrier has a property interest in the phone. Nobody is charged a fee for breaking their phone while under contract; they are expected to just buy another phone.
"you can easily get out of your contract by paying the ETF."
So what? That is not the issue. Nobody is suggesting that people should be able to terminate their contracts without paying a fee. The issue is whether or not people will be able to unlock their phones, which is completely orthogonal to the issue of contracts.
You know perfectly well that you retain liability for the ETF, which is a proxy for the phone, and reflective of the impracticality of repossessing it.
And the administration supports the right to unlock your phone out of contract. While it's in contract, and non-unlocking is a contractual provision, that's between you and your carrier. If you find the non-unlocking provision of the contract offensive, as I do, then don't enter into such a contract.
No, I know no such thing; all I see is a cell phone company using a loss leader strategy, and the US government affording them special protections for that strategy. On paper and elsewhere, you own your phone -- end of story. There is no issue of repossession because there is no line of credit involved. Furthermore, even if there were a line of credit here, credit card companies are able to go after delinquent accounts even in cases where repossession is infeasible, and often with amounts of money that are much larger than the price of a typical phone.
It is not as though the contract is for free service plus payment for the phone in installments. The service is still at a massive premium even with the contract, and the early termination fee is only tangentially related to the price of the phone. The sole purpose of selling the phones at a discount is to entice consumers into paying for contracts; it is a classic loss leader strategy.
"While it's in contract, and non-unlocking is a contractual provision"
Contract law is a separate issue from the DMCA. The problem here is not the enforcement of a contract, it is the fact that even without a contractual prohibition on unlocking the phone you would still be forbidden from doing so.
Who ever said it was? Arguing with you is turning out to be a colossal waste of time; every time you run into problems you gin up a straw man and attack that. This is my last contribution to this thread.
Contract law is a separate issue from the DMCA. The problem here is not the enforcement of a contract, it is the fact that even without a contractual prohibition on unlocking the phone you would still be forbidden from doing so.
I've already addressed that points. The administration has expressed its support for people being able to unlock their phone when its out of contract. So if the administration gets what it wants and Congress updates the law, your complaints will be moot. If you don't like the terms of offer in a discount cellphone contract, then don't enter into such a contract.
Who ever said it was? Arguing with you is turning out to be a colossal waste of time; every time you run into problems you gin up a straw man and attack that. This is my last contribution to this thread."
You are the one who claimed the people do not own their phones while under contract. If the contract is not an installment plan or a line of credit, then what property ownership do you think the companies have on the phone? Well, I guess since it was your last contribution to the thread, you will not answer.
"The administration has expressed its support for people being able to unlock their phone when its out of contract"
That is not in any way related to what I said. I said that the problem is that the DMCA forbids unlocking regardless of the contract. You can enter into a contract that says nothing about unlocking, and guess what? Unlocking will still be illegal.
Stop pretending that this is not a special protection for the cell carriers' business.
More like you're wrong, and are just assuming no one will take the time to read a contract and call you on it.
I just read through the T-Mobile contract (http://www.t-mobile.com/Templates/Popup.aspx?PAsset=Ftr_Ftr_...), and there is no mention of title at all. They do try to restrict what you can do with your device while it is on their network (including prohibiting you from "modifying the device", which should include unlocking), but nowhere do they claim ownership of the device.
The phone is not loaned/leased to you. There is no lien on it. The carrier has no recourse to repossess the phone. The early termination fee is there, of course, but is entirely unrelated from a contractual point of view. If you break your contract, they have the right and ability to collect the early termination fee, and nothing else.
As an aside, I'm not sure why you'd consider it so impractical for the carrier to repossess the phone if someone breaks contract. It's certainly feasible, and they could likely refurb and resell the phone for something on the order of the early termination fee. But yes, that would take more effort than sending a bill, so they have chosen not to consider the phone on loan. It's yours, contract or not.
But none of this is particularly relevant. The question at hand is about whether or not unlocking your phone is a DMCA violation and thus a criminal act. Depending on the particular carrier, it may or may not be a violation of your contract to unlock your phone, but that should be a civil matter, not a criminal one.
Why are you so hell-bent on ceding power to companies that have been granted mono/duopolies by the government, and are making use of a precious public resource (radio spectrum)? Do you seriously care so little for your rights as a customer -- hell, as a human being -- that you'd prefer that modifying a device you own (yes, own) is a felony? I just don't understand why anyone would side with one of the carriers... ever. For the most part they are as anti-consumer as companies can be. Individuals have little way to right that imbalance without government intervention.
Oh wait no, it's a DMCA violation and a criminal offence, well that all seems fair and proportionate.