Carriers Say They're Making Progress on Unlocked Cellphones
Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn’s admonishment to carriers that they should work toward an “industry-wide cellphone unlocking solution” was not directly tied to any one event or series of industry meetings, but instead reflects Clyburn’s sense that a solution is possible, industry and agency officials said Friday. Clyburn released the statement Thursday (CD Aug 23 p13).
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In January, the Librarian of Congress issued a ruling that effectively made it illegal to unlock new phones (http://1.usa.gov/ZaI6qS). Violators can face heavy fines and prison time. In March, the White House and former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski both questioned the decision and called for a fix, most likely through legislation (CD March 5 p1).
Wireless industry and public interest groups Friday welcomed Clyburn’s call to action (http://bit.ly/155u2IJ). “CTIA appreciates acting Chairwoman Clyburn’s call for clear and transparent policies on phone unlocking, and looks forward to working with the commission to ensure that consumers are aware of the wide variety of unlocked devices that are available,” said CTIA Vice President Scott Bergmann. “Today there are more than 240 unlocked devices available for purchase from a wireless carrier, retail store or directly from the manufacturer. Given the plethora of choices among handsets and the other factors that differentiate carriers and networks, it is clear that consumers continue to benefit from the competitive market for mobile services."The Competitive Carriers Association has “urged the Library of Congress to extend the previous unlocking exemption and has strongly endorsed and supported legislative solutions to reverse the anti-consumer determination made by the Librarian of Congress,” said CCA President Steve Berry. “CCA supports Chairwoman Clyburn’s call for a more definitive understanding of the rights of the consumer to unlock their wireless devices and looks forward to working with the commission and Congress to better define those policies."
Public Knowledge Vice President Sherwin Siy said carriers should do more to offer phones that can be unlocked by subscribers. “It’s great that ‘many’ handsets are already unlocked,” he said. “There’s no particularly good reason why all of them aren’t. If we're going to have the competitive market in wireless services that everyone says we're striving for, consumers can’t be locked into an undeserved loyalty to a carrier they signed up with years ago. I'm sure that the amount of attention paid to the issue recently has done a lot of good in pressuring some carriers to leave many phones unlocked. But this doesn’t actually solve the deeper problem -- that the law still contains penalties for a completely innocent act.”
"The FCC has clear authority to prevent carriers from locking devices or requiring others to lock them,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. “An FCC ruling, if done right, clearly would benefit consumers and competition, even if it quite obviously couldn’t change the copyright status of unlocking tools.”(hbuskirk@warren-news.com)