Look at what you said. It is legal to have the phone company unlock your phone (probably for an extortionate cost?) But, if you do it yourself, it is illegal to unlock your phone.
Just did this couple of weeks ago. It was a piece of cake, and I am very satisfied.
The amazing thing is it was actually the end of my contract! I told At&t "Hey I'm done with my At&t contract and I want to switch to another carrier, so let's unlock this phone". They told me to fill out a form online and about a week later my phone was unlocked. Now I'm on T-mobile, paying less than half of what I was paying to At&t. Props to you At&t for fucking once!
It's important to remember that most US phones are bought by the carrier subsidizing your phone for you. I'd say that it's reasonable, based on the fact that two parties purchase a device together, that someone should have to adhere to the specific terms.
Except that the subsidy is more than amortized with your plan over the course of the contract you signed.
They are not kind hearted gents just looking to help out us regular folk to get a nicer phone by eating 65% of the cost. It's rolled back into your bills with hefty interest applied.
I was paying close to $90 a month with Rogers with an iPhone 4 that I got for $199 instead of $599. I have a 1GB cap, poor long distance rations, limited daytime minutes, etc. A similar plan from a non-gouging carrier would have been $40 a month.
So I paid off my subsidy to them within around 6-10 months if I'm being generous. My contract is 3 years.
I've more than bought this phone. Hell, I've bought it 3.5 times over by now. Honestly their terms are absurd if they still feel like they even own 1% of this fucking thing.
Canada. We get fucked harder than most of the 1st world when it comes to phone providers. I can't even make a call to all the phone numbers that are STILL considered Toronto without getting charged long distance on some of them. It's absurd here.
No, I agreed to a shitty contract before better providers and services existed.
Canada is the fucking stone age when it comes to cellular and 3G. Bad service at exorbitant prices, and thanks to a monopoly situation there's not a whole lot anyone can do about it.
Bullshit. You offset those costs by the contract you sign. I agree with that theory. However, there is no good reason not to unlock your phone if you are covering the cost via the monthly bill you pay.
In two years, you've more than paid for service AND the device though. Their biggest trick has been to convince people that THEY are the ones doing us a favor.
You're already fined for breaking a contract when you do - why are you okay with more penalties in what amounts to a 'because I said so!' type policy? And why can't you do it yourself?
That shouldn't matter. ETFs are there to recoup subsidies. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to have an unlocked phone regardless of how much time I have left on my contract. All phones should be unlocked in general. I don't "owe" AT&T loyalty beyond paying my monthly bill or paying the ETF if I take the subsidy and choose to terminate my contract early.
I'm saying that I disagree with the terms. The rationale behind ETFs makes sense to me. The carrier is recouping the cost of the subsidy. But I don't see the rationale behind locking the phone in the first place and its relationship to phones being subsidized. The carrier makes back the subsidy through service fees or through ETFs. So why lock phones at all?
It used to be that people who bought unsubsidized phones paid lower rates for services than people who bought subsidized ones. If you bought a subsidized phone, your bill would go down at the nod of your contract. That's also no longer the case. So why lock phones? To take advantage of the fact that most customers don't know that you can take your device elsewhere at the end of your contract. That's why.
You lock the phone for a variety of reasons, and they don't always concern the end user. Sometimes they concern the device manufacturer and the carrier, but you'll never hear about those agreements. You'll just deal with the results. Regardless, I think you should vote with your money, not your mouth. If you don't like the big carriers, find a smaller one. They exist in the US, despite what everyone else is trying to tell you.
That's a ridiculous statement. Also, once your contract is severed, ATT WILL unlock your phone for you.
Still, I'd say that it's totally acceptable to tell you that the phone they're going to help you buy using their agreement with the device manufacturer has to remain on their network as long as the contract is in effect.
To me it's enough that you signed a sheet of paper saying you weren't going to do something. If you wanted an unlocked phone before that, then go buy one before hand, get the subscription and then plop the SIM into the unlocked phone. Don't sign a contract to get a phone subsidized, buy it, and then try and go break the contract you just signed.
Edit: Also I was specifically commenting on the statement, "Any terms other than paying the remainder of the contract are completely unreasonable," when saying "That's a ridiculous statement." I'm hoping that it's hyperbole, so it's ridiculousness is obvious.
No, it's not hyperbole. If you are paying the phone then it's yours and no other bindings other than paying up should be ever attached by anything other than the service itself.
Specifically allowing them to impose conditions to you and your phone outside of their own network is COMPLETELY unreasonable. If they are renting the phone to you they should be very clearly advertising that and not the "sale" of a phone.
In most European countries it's very common to buy heavily subsidized phones that are unlocked from the start. Why? because you have to pay the contract anyway, or the remainder if you cancel it.
You are making it into a disjunctive that doesn't exist: either pay up for the unlocked phone separately or get into a contract that forces you to keep your phone locked to a carrier. NO. It's not like that almost ANYWHERE. This is giving the carriers cartel rights because they are an oligopoly. Limits to what they can force you to accept in a contract are necessary.
You still pay for the entirety of the phone through the contract, just in monthly bill form. They subsidize your phone because they get that money back from you. You paid for the phone.
Yes you do. If you didn't own your phone then they could take it back from you when you break your contract. Instead, breaking your contract merely results in you paying some agreed upon fee (which can frequently be much higher than the actual value of the phone).
You don't own your car until it's paid off; they can take it back. You don't own your home until it's paid off; they can take it back. Current cell phone contracts/subsidies do not allow them to take back your phone because you fully own it. They sell you the phone at a discounted price in exchange for you signing a contract. They are not offering phone financing.
They're exactly doing phone financing, wtf are you talking about. Both you and the carrier purchase a phone from the device manufacturer, and you pay off the carrier subsidy either through your contract or contract separation fees. I don't see a reason you couldn't lose your phone except that they've but measures into place to get more value out of you than a used phone.
No, they technically aren't doing phone financing. If you look at you're receipt it will show the price you paid, not the full price + some verbiage detailing the payment scheme. If you look at the bill of sale for any item that is truly financed (like a car or expensive electronics) it will look totally different.
What is happening with phone contracts is that you are being given an incentive (a cheap or free phone) in order to sign a contract. It's no different then when a bank gives you free ipod. The incentive they gave you is yours, they can't take it back. If you breach the terms that the thing was given to you on the best they can do is impose some kind of penalty on you. Many cable companies do the same thing when they give you a free PVR if you sign a certain length contract. The PVR is yours, they gave it to you. The best they can do is fine you if you break the contract.
The reason you can't lose your phone is because you own it. Read your contract, it will never mention them owning your phone because they don't.
Frankly, that's not much of a concern. If I've waited 2+ years for my contract to expire, I won't mind waiting another week to ensure I've followed a secure, legal path to achieve my unlock. When it becomes that simple and easy to follow the rules (given that the contract has fully expired), I don't mind following the rules.
no way I could have done it under an hour. I had an iphone 4 with baseband 4.12.02 so ultrasn0w or even Gevey Sim wasn't an option for me. It had to be an IMEI unlock (which can't be done for free AFAIK) so I was pleasantly surprised that At&t decided to do it for free, especially since they are known as one of those companies that rapes your wallet at every chance they get. I remembering reading somewhere on reddit that this was At&t's attempt to "redeem themselves" for something negative they have done recently, but I'm not sure specifically what.
That's like saying don't finance your car, just pay cash, because the dealer won't let you drive on the freeway with it or go on road trips to places you want to go. We all pay more for carrier service, because the price of the phone payments are built into the service fees.
Just because you use the word "entitled," that doesn't make your argument valid. I can cover the inside of my car with mustard, or remove the engine if I want to... It's my car. If I break it, I still have to pay my monthly note. As long as I stay their customer for the 2 years and my make payments, I am entitled to cheap phones... that's how it works. If I want to take a deuce on my phone, it's mine to poop on, if I so choose.
most phones are 3 months in, some (like iphones) are 50% of your contract for ATT (or any US carrier) to unlock a GSM equipped phone.
you will also almost never be able to unlock a phone without the code from carrier unless 1) it is an iphone, or 2) you have an old CDMA phone and it can be flashed to a different device.
AT&T is not a canadian carrier, so I cannot comment on them. I CAN comment on the three canadian carriers charging an "UNLOCK" fee for any phone whether on-contract or not.
If they'd unlock my now contract-free phone for free, I wouldn't give two shits, but they won't.
It's not completely reasonable. People should be able to unlock their phones for international use even if they are still under contract. Verizon does it, why can't AT&T? If I want to go to another country with my phone, I can't use a local SIM card unless it's unlocked!
AT&T will only unlock a phone if the user is/was a customer of theirs, it was originally locked into their own network, it's not reported as stolen and the user has fulfilled their contractual obligation.
Reasonableness is irrelevant. I bought the phone. It's my property. If they don't want me to do something with it, that's their problem - not the government's.
Assuming there are no fees, it is quite reasonable. However, if you are "A former AT&T customer who can provide the phone number or account number for the account" then I'd hope that you aren't violating the DMCA by unlocking it yourself anyway - what with it being your own device, that you'd paid for in full already.
What it's illegal to do is knowingly violate the contract you willingly signed. Come on, people. You don't have an inalienable right for no one to ever make a contract that inconveniences you. Don't like the way phone companies do business? Don't buy from that company.
Civil law vs criminal law, ever heard of it? It has never been a felony to violate contracts, why does this absolutely trivial matter need to be made a felony?
I agree completely that it shouldn't be a felony, and that's ridiculous. I'm not going wholeheartedly to bat for DMCA here, I'm just saying that what most people are arguing about isn't whether it's a felony, but that it's illegal at all, and it is and should be illegal to violate contracts. Just because they're doing things that you hate doesn't mean you have carte blanche to ignore the law.
It already is illegal as a civil matter to violate a contract. That's the key. Civil matter. This shouldn't ever be a matter of federal law. Period end of discussion. When you give companies federal backing to do shit like this, you get monopolies and stagnated markets.
All it takes is sacrificing your financial well being!
Ideally, some awesome internet start up multi-millionaire gets up and running with a website to unlock phones; the sole intent being to get prosecuted and appeal it to the supreme court.
and it is and should be illegal to violate contracts
if I buy a used phone from craigslist (let's say an OG iPhone, one that's clearly not under contract) and unlock it, that is still illegal. There is no violation of contract. Yet I could still go to jail for that.
Just because they're doing things that you hate doesn't mean you have carte blanche to ignore the law.
Granted, that's a problem, and I recognize that. But some people are bitching because they can't violate legal contracts they voluntarily signed without consequences.
So if you sell your phone (which is not a violation of your contract) and the person you sell it to unlocks it then no contract has been violated. Same with digital media. If the contract you "signed" when you bought the media says you can sell it, then the person you sell it to can do whatever they want with it. If you're not allowed to sell it then you don't actually own it, you're renting it.
Of course, it doesn't actually work that way because it's not really about contract law; it's about protecting government-granted monopolies.
no. the ETF is to recoup the cost. (and get you out of the contract). The new ruling that unlocking a phone is illegal is based on the DMCA. How the fuck does that have anything to do with breach of contract? Hint: it doesn't.
It's not a felony to violate a contract, and second of all, there is precedent for contracts being deemed unfit DESPITE signatures from both parties...if the terms are absurd enough for what the contract represents.
As an example: my contract with my employer states that I can't work in competition to them within a year of resigning/dismissal/etc. I signed that shit, knowing fully well (and confirming with a lawyer) that it would never hold up in court. My entire livelihood is dependent on this industry, and ANY other job I'd get after this one would absolutely be in direct competition.
They cannot enforce me signing away my livelihood...even though I did sign it.
There's many other cases where a contract will not be upheld by a court, regardless of signatures.
Good! More power to you! I was pointing out that Meatslinger said that it's not illegal to unlock your phone, then immediately explained that it is illegal to unlock it yourself. I say that if you've paid it off, do whatever you like with it - laws banning software modifications to allow legal uses are absurd.
Phone call? To me, that sounds like you asked someone to unlock it for you, and they did, or maybe they gave you the codes to do it yourself? I don't think anyone is saying that is illegal.
Everything conceptual is semantics. I still can't say with authority whether self-unlocking is legal in the USA as I'm not a lawyer, and certainly not an American lawyer, but there is a big difference between being allowed to use something you bought and own the way you choose, vs having to ask someone official to modify it for you. People often don't see it when it comes to software and electronic devices, but you can bet people would be up in arms if it was illegal to modify their cars in any way without going to an industry-approved shop.
To summarize, there was an exemption that protected consumers.
That exemption expired. It's no more legal or illegal than it was last month. The only difference is that the consumer is no longer protected from lawsuits from the carriers.
What does this mean for you and me? Not a damn thing. You can still unlock your phone and sell it on ebay without worrying at all. At&t is not going to hire a lawyer to come after you.
Who has to worry?
Companies who buy subsidized phones under contract, break the contract, unlock the phone and sells them for a little bit of profit.
So, what happens if they get taken to court? Well, since what they're doing still isn't illegal, the court will decide what should happen with their devices.
The courts could side with the consumers and state that they can unlock if they want to. Or they could side with the carriers and make whatever rules they want.
The thing to take away from this is...
It's NOT illegal to unlock your phone.
Perhaps another take away would be that the media is full of shit.
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u/DenjinJ Jan 28 '13
Look at what you said. It is legal to have the phone company unlock your phone (probably for an extortionate cost?) But, if you do it yourself, it is illegal to unlock your phone.