Cell Phone Unlocking May be Getting Simpler

Business Week revealed today that between a brand new service being offered by MetroPCS and new regulations which the FCC is considering, it may soon be much easier to unlock your cell phone – so that it actually works. Because, as Business Week further points out, while it is currently possible to unlock a device to try and make it work for a different network, sometimes the complicated steps it takes to get to that point end up making the cell phone quit working altogether.

As people become more eager to move from what carrier to the other while still keeping the phone they have become accustomed to using, the prospect of unlocking phones becomes more and more popular. Just last month, MetroPCS became the first of the big league carriers in the United States that offered – publicly – to unlock any devices offered by competitors, namely Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Alltel, and other carriers who use the CMDA network.

MetroPCS already has about 4.4 million customers; this offer is expected to give them anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 more.

Other wireless carriers are now preparing to follow suit, says Business Week, perhaps realizing how much such an offer could increase their business, which becomes especially important now that so many people in the United States already have and use cell phones. Wireless providers are now having to compete with one another and lure each other’s customers, because there simply are not that many new customers to be had.

Those companies who do not intend to offer a comparable unlocking service are confident that they will be able to keep their current customers because of their often expensive early termination fees – but the FCC may have something to say about that. The FCC has long been considering ways to make providers to reduce these frequently exorbitant fees, and the theory is that forcing customers to say with a particular service is just going to make switching that much more appealing.

Even Pay As You Go carriers like Virgin and Tracfone are trying to restrict people from unlocking their phones. This is somewhat understandable, as people have been unlocking their phones in order to sell them again, but Virgin’s terms, for instance, expressly forbid people from using their handsets with any other service. Many people think this is not only ridiculous, but wholly unenforceable.

(July 9, 2008)