So the Library of Congress has apparently decided there’s enough cellphone competition, and therefore unlocking your phone yourself is now going to be against the law again. This is possible because of some insane DMCA interpretation that happens every three years, and allowed for olly-olly-oxen-free unlocking before because locking was held to create a sort of competitive imbalance.
Which it still does. If I have a brand-new unlocked iPhone, I can take it to AT&T or T-Mobile. If I have an AT&T or Verizon (or maybe Sprint) iPhone and I unlock it, I can take it to…AT&T or T-Mobile. You can’t move a phone between Sprint and Verizon without the carrier’s participation; it’s not as simple as buy-a-SIM-and-pop-it-in.
The principle of the thing is, of course, outrageous – if you’re under contract with a subsidized phone, that’s one thing, but there is absolutely no justification for preventing the unlocking of any phone once the user is out of contract. Then again, of the carriers that you can freely move between, only T-Mobile appears willing to charge you less for bringing an unsubsidized phone of your own. And T-Mobile’s network has of late been suspect, not least because they insisted on pitching HSPA+ as “4G”. Now, they may have LTE rolling out and they may not, but by and large…
You know, it’s hardly worth ranting about at this point. We have settled into the every-two-years model with carriers and phones, and the FCC and FTC have essentially given the AT&T-Verizon duopoly the whip hand. And that’s just how it’s going to be, absent a major uprising.
My solution was to give up my personal phone and let work pick up the tab for the Verizon iPhone 5. (And not a minute too soon, as my cellular data usage has basically trebled in the three months since I took possession.) Once I need a new phone on my own…well, we can burn that bridge when we get to it.