Now Hear This Electronic Newsletter, May 17, 2007 Posted by Bob at 05/11/07 11:24 AM

Pssst. We want to let you in on a dirty little secret. Your cell phone has probably been electronically "locked" by your carrier so it won't work should you decide to switch service providers.

That's right. Were it not for these electronic locks slipped in by wireless companies, consumers who own their cell phone would be able to use them with just about any wireless service they choose.

Wireless phone companies don't really want consumers to know these locks have been installed on their phones. And they really don't want consumers to know about a recent ruling by U.S. Copyright Office that said wireless phone users have the right to break those software locks if they own their phones. (You can read our previous blogs on this ruling here and here.)

Despite that ruling, it appears wireless companies are still slipping the locks into their handsets and, in some cases, are rejiggering their contract language to get around the court's decision.

We think these kind of tactics are blatantly anti-consumer. Sure, there are lots of wireless phone companies out there, but it isn't really a competitive market if consumers are prevented from moving easily between service providers.

And it appears this is a uniquely American practice by wireless carriers. Consumers in Europe and Asia are largely able to purchase unlocked cell phones and use them on the carrier network of their choice. All that is usually required is a small card that is inserted into the handset.

Consumers Union and some of our fellow consumer advocacy organizations have asked the Federal Communications Commission to tell wireless carriers to stop locking cell phones. (You can read our comments to the FCC by clicking here)

The comments also raise a bigger issue with the FCC: That consumers should be allowed to connect any sort of device to a wireless network as long as it doesn't harm the network.

That is how it has worked with traditional landline phone networks since the so-called "Carterphone" court decision in 1968. Because of that case, consumers can now go to Staples or Best Buy and purchase virtually any brand of fax machine and hook it up to their phone line. Same with modems, answering machines and portable phones.

The Carterphone decision turned lose a tidal wave of innovation that is still going on today.

That is how a free market is supposed to work. And it is how it should be with wireless devices.

The specific petition now before the FCC involves Skype, the Internet phone service. You can read more about the case at these links:

Skype petitions FCC for open cellular access, CNet News

A Call To Let Your Phone Loose, Washington Post

Skype Asks FCC to Force Open Mobile Networks, PC World

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comments (4)

1 Posted by Conrad W Ware at 05/17/07 10:44 AM

Cellular phone customers should be able to choose the provider of their choice even if it means changing from one to another. Their wireless phone should be free of locks to work with any provider they choose to use.

2 Posted by Gene Nichols at 05/17/07 02:30 PM

To many of our big companies are running and ruleing our lifes. Wireless companies only respct the doller not the consumer. Change is needed.

3 Posted by Terrell Waters at 05/17/07 05:11 PM

Another example of the current Administration's
propensity to scratch the back of big business
and ignore the consumer. Let'd all work to change this at election time.

4 Posted by tars campbell at 05/19/07 01:54 AM

Its time for my wife and I to disconnet from the internet, the wired and wireless phone services, live off the grid and move out of the high taxed Oregon/Washington Northwest.

Locked cellphones is just the tip of the money pit we live in today. We think we need all these wonderful electrionic things. When we were kids in the forties and fifties we had none of the above, no TV no telephone till 1953, no microwave on and on. We had wood stove heat, runing water and electricity for lights and sometimes a heatlamp. We did have a 1939 Admiral wide band long range radio. That was it. We did ok then. Less stress, got a lot of good things done and we were very happy with our lives. It was a simple less stressful time.

We are dead seriously considering such a move. We are tired of the America for the rich by the rich and the Coporate elite. We don't need it.