Unlocking the iPhone Imminent?

Cell phone companies such as T-Mobile and AT&T suffered a blow on Tuesday, when the Supreme Court rejected their bid to dismiss a class-action lawsuit regarding unlocking cell phones, filed against them by agreed customers.

Wired reports that the United States Supreme Court decided not to review the ruling made by California’s Supreme Court. California ruled to allow a lawsuit filed by “millions” of unhappy mobile phone users in California.

Lawsuits like the one filed in California have resulted in CDMA carriers such as Verizon and Sprint agreeing to provide the necessary codes to allow users to unlock their mobile devices after their initial contract is over. It was a compromise the companies made in order to settle the cases against them.

Rather than making compromises, T-Mobile and AT&T have been fighting the lawsuit against them for quite a while, so the blow from the United States Supreme Court carries quite an impact. In short, both companies, which belong to the GSM network, are being sued for practicing unfair business tactics, namely by locking certain cell phones into their service plans. The unlocking of cell phones is one of six new products being exempted under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Some of the lower courts which have handled lawsuits filed against cell phone companies have called the contracts they use to bind customers “unconscionable,” says Wired.

If the Supreme Court’s denial goes through, it might possibly make AT&T be forced to unlock the iPhone. Because the iPhone is provided exclusively through AT&T, the supporters of these lawsuits have it high on their list of targeted phones.

AT&T is already implementing new, prorated prices. Now, for each month a customer’s contract is in effect, five dollars is taken off the one hundred and seventy five dollar cancellation fee. T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint also run the risk of being made to initiate similar policies.

(May 29, 2008)