Unlocking Cell Phones in U.S. to Become Illegal January 26

[unoriginal1]

won't somebody think of the mega-corps?!

lol. Does kinda sound like im sticking up for them doesn't it.

 

[bigpoppastuke]

I see the point if the phone is bought under contract and you still haven't paid said contract off. The phone is still the providers phone. However, buying a phone outright should mean the phone is automatically unlocked and 100% yours to do with as you please. This law needs to be more specific.

 

[Mousemonkey]

land of the free

Its also supposed to be the land of the brave so those who don't like it should be brave and do something about it.

 

[mlopinto2k1]

[citation][nom]g00fysmiley[/nom]if you are buying your phone... then why can't you do what you want with it assumign you care not committig a crime with it? .... pointless legislation is pointless[/citation]I believe you cannot do whatever you want to do because of it being illegal. I am pretty sure you just read that. Pointless complaining is pointless.

 

[twelch82]

I would like to see this challenged in court.

 

[twelch82]

[citation][nom]unoriginal1[/nom]There's more to it then the "cost" of the device that people are not seeing. I wouldn't say I was at the bottom but I certainly wasn't at the top either. You've got Advertising costs, Tower repair, Upgrade costs (edge to 3g, 3g to 4g etc). You've got customer support cost, Store front cost the list goes on and on. It's not as simple as the phone cost XX and we get that money back in XX. My numbers weren't meant to be taken literal. Just giving an example for people to think outside of the box a bit.[/citation]

So charge more for it then. Or make it clear that you're leasing it.

If you sell something to someone, it should no longer be your business or the government's what they do with it as long as it isn't being used to cause harm to others. And I don't mean in some roundabout, "well this can lead to that" sort of way, but rather in a very direct way.

Did I use it as a weapon to injure someone with it? Did I pollute everyone's groundwater by putting the battery into a well? No? Then it's none of your business what else I do with it now that I own it.

 

[unoriginal1]

So charge more for it then. Or make it clear that you're leasing it.

If you sell something to someone, it should no longer be your business or the government's what they do with it as long as it isn't being used to cause harm to others. And I don't mean in some roundabout, "well this can lead to that" sort of way, but rather in a very direct way.
.

I agree. It should be much more clear cut and up front. But what is these days?? Heck, we have to agree to TOS on games that are 15 pages long when all they should have to say is "you cheat you get banned no questions" But because there is a loop hole to just about everything and tons of greedy shady people out there ready to take advantage. (including greedy companies) It's not always that easy.

Like I said before I'm not sticking up for the companies. I hate the policies just as much as the next guy. But some of the posters on here ranting about how the gov and companies are in it to stick it to the common person, that we should have no gov etc. They are beyond retarded. Sadly without a gov/rules it would be utter chaos.

 

[ceh4702]

I guess when you purchase a phone with your own money, you really do not own it. What about ownership rights? The Telecommunications industry is full of theives and extornionists.

 

[ceh4702]

They should force the phone companies to separate the phones and the operating systms. This just promotes more phones in landfills. Then make the phone companies pay to dispose of the phone as well!

 

[ceh4702]

Phones are not worth that much money. You people are so stupid to believe a phone is worth $1,000.00. You are all deluded. You can buy a tablet with an operating system and a camera and a mic for about $400 and install skype.

 

[BF4Shifty]

If it in any way keeps those big business guys from making money they will try their hardest to make it impossible to do...so they're making it illegal. Man I love how companies are getting even more sleazy as time goes on. One example is YouTube...they were fine a year or two ago with no commercials but they sold out....to do you know what....MAKE MONEY. NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT MAKING MONEY PEOPLE!

 

[ricky_d]

"Unlocking a phone (not to be confused from jailbreaking -- a method to run additional software and instill modified code -- which remains legal)..."

 

[ricky_d]

It's perfectly logical. You buy a device at a reduce priced because it's tied to a contract. Why should it be "legal" to just break that contract?

 

[mitch074]

I'm glad I'm living in Europe, then - general policy over here is that the carrier MUST provide you the unlock code for free 3 months after the date of purchase. More and more, carriers provide data/call plans without a phone, but allow you to buy one in several instalments (separate from the data plan) quite often at a cheaper price than for the naked phone found in stores. If you compare a €20/month unlimited data plan (3Gb faire use, unlimited calls, free phone number transfer and no lengthy contract, just tacit monthly reconduction) without phone to a €35/month, 200Mb fair use data, 3hours calls and a 2-years contract, you'll soon consider that buying a phone and a data plan separately are quite a bargain...

 

[sebross]

it said it will be nolonger deemed legal in america and Canada is in North America so is it illigel in Canada too :O

 

[cats_Paw]

Since i dont live in the US, this aint a problem for me. However, If i did live there, Id probably do something quite simple: Make a blog about how to "change" the mind of those congressmen and carriers: convince people to not buy mobile phones anymore, and cancel their mobile phone contracts.

Using Internet for communication and meeting in person instead of using the phone.
Id post this in about 300-500 sites (probably just copy - paste) after i got the text right, and finally send the links to all of those who decided to force this law on the consumers.

After that, Id write that i will continue In this campaign in order to lower the profits of the companies and those who were bought with their money untill they not only removed this law, but also paid for it.

If that would not have the desired effect, i would rally up anotehr 5 guys to help me do this campaign, then ask them to find another 5 guys, and so on.

When you got the tools, its actually not that hard to get things done, but of course you have to care enought to actually "do" something about it, and most of us dont care about anything but ourselves, so... well companies and politicians behave the same way, who whould ahve guessed, huh?

 

[knowom]

I'd say I wished the governments contract would expire, but oh wait it all ready did just recently.

 

[Christopher Shaffer]

So when exactly did Congress find the time to pass this law when they can't seem to pass the laws we actually need?

And WTF is the FTC doing while consumers are about to be raped for no reason?

Up your's, corporate 'Merica and screw you ALL lobbyist groups.

 

[bluzbrother]

If you're receiving a phone under contract, it essentially isn't 'your' phone until you've met your obligation to the carrier. If you own the phone, there aren't restrictions to you unlocking the phone, and the carrier will provide you the unlock code. I think this is clearly stated in the article that this only applies to phones under contract..

It's sounds like people complaining that they can't have their cake and eat it too. If I want to unlock the phone AT&T provided me at a steep discount to be their customer... why are they not entitled to the money back? Obviously I would be leaving for another carrier if I'm having the phone unlocked.

 

[Christopher Shaffer]

If you're receiving a phone under contract, it essentially isn't 'your' phone until you've met your obligation to the carrier. If you own the phone, there aren't restrictions to you unlocking the phone, and the carrier will provide you the unlock code. I think this is clearly stated in the article that this only applies to phones under contract..

It's sounds like people complaining that they can't have their cake and eat it too. If I want to unlock the phone AT&T provided me at a steep discount to be their customer... why are they not entitled to the money back? Obviously I would be leaving for another carrier if I'm having the phone unlocked.

Because if I leave that carrier that "provided" me the phone before the end of my contract, I get charged for the remaining "value" of the phone, effectively having to purchase it outright just as though they hadn't subsidized the cost.

On the flip side, if I'm in an area that carrier doesn't cover, I'm restricted from using my same phone on a compatible network from a pay-as-you-go company. If my phone is unlocked, I can pay for Boost, T-mobile, etc. while needed and then switch back to my contract carrier as needed.

For people who are traveling, especially abroad, this makes a lot of sense.

They can make it illegal all they want, but it won't stop people from doing it anyway.

 

[phoghat]

Librarian of Congress's 90-day window ends on Saturday.

Unlocking Cell Phones in U.S. to Become Illegal January 26 : Read more

it's only illegal if you get caught

 

[ceh4702]

What about the software on the phone? It belongs to the phone company. You may disagree with this but software licenses in the USA give the software license owners all the rights; not the phone owner.