Bipartisan Bills Proposed to Legalize Cellphone Unlocking

On March 4, the White House officially supported a petition for a law which allows a cellphone owner to unlock his phone. The White House petition had garnered more than 100,000 signatories in less than three weeks. Two days later, a senate bill was introduced to finally legalize cellphone unlocking in the US. The bipartisan bill called the Wireless Consumer Choice Act, was a quick response from US Senators Amy Klobucher (Democrat) of Minnesota, Richard Blumenthal (Democrat) of Connecticut, and Mike Lee (Republican) of Utah.

A companion bill was also introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Anna Eschoo (Democrat). The development comes at the heels of an earlier bill authored by Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat) of Oregon, called the Wireless Device Independence Act. This one proposes to add a section to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that will allow consumers to unlock their cellphones.

Clamor for Cellphone Unlocking

The push to allow cellphone unlocking stems from the practice of tying a mobile phone model exclusively to a carrier. In most instances, this has led to cellphones being sold at full price while maintaining a mobile phone subscription plan with the vendor telco company. Unlocking a cellphone is currently considered an illegal practice in the US because it goes against the terms of the contract between the telco company and the mobile phone owner.

Sen. Wyden’s proposed bill is just an amendment of the existing DMCA law. The amendment would explicitly allow the use of a software to unlock the phone as long as the (1) user owns the software; (2) the software use is to allow the phone to connect to another wireless telecommunications network; and (3) access to the new network is permitted by that network. As far as the DMCA is concerned, unlocking a phone is a form of copyright infringement because it re-writes phone software.

Benefits of the Cellphone Unlocking Bill

The proposed bill will hopefully force carriers to market unlocked cellphones, or to do away with locked cellphones altogether. Alternatively, the cellphone companies might start selling subsidized handsets, but with adjustments in the current contract wordings which would void warranty if the unit was unlocked. One possible scenario for cellphone manufacturers is for them to be able to sell their units through all the carriers, instead of only one or two.

For consumers, allowing cellphone unlocking would mean that they can avail of mobile phone services which are better for their area. For consumers who spend some time abroad, this would allow them to use a different SIM card while out of the country. If these bills are approved, American consumers will have the freedom to choose not only which telco companies to sign a service plan with, but they can also freely choose the mobile phone unit they want to use.