The White House is in favor of letting you legally unlock your cellphone or other mobile device without your carriers' approval, and is considering a range of actions to achieve that end including a potential push for Congressional action, the administration announced Monday.
I find it rather shocking that the government would get involved in this.
http://mashable.com/2013/03/04/white-house-unlocking/
I've never believed in being tied to one service provider. Whether it's internet, cable tv, or cell phones. It stifles competition. Say you have a phone you bought from brand A. They offered a phone that has most of the features you were looking for at the time, ie:apps. You got reasonable bandwidth usage, text, and free LD calling. You've been a good customer for the life of your contract and you're looking at renewing.
Now to get those same goodies the cost has gone up while the provided services have been reduced. So, you're looking at that state of the art phone you pawned your car to get in your hand and you're thinking, "F that. Let's scope out brand B here and see what they have."
Brand B, an up and coming company, is genuinely happy to see you. Their service package is fully customizable and is very reasonably priced. You get it in writing for X amount of time with a waiver on breaking the contract fee if you want to bail out. Great deal huh?
Not so fast there hotrod. Here's the shot to the cajones you don't deserve.
That state of the art phone is locked in to the service of brand A. Through some wheeling and dealing with the phone maker, brand A has exclusive rights to that make and model. You're screwed...
To get brand B's service you're going to have to
A: Buy a new phone.
B: Illegally unlock the phone and hope brand B will accept it.
C: Go back to brand A and take the higher cost, lower quality service.
With legal unlocking, you can go to any service provider who's network supports your phone. The big boys fear that. They want to stick their hands in your pockets and stay there. By allowing phone customers the option of being able to change providers competition will get fierce. That will be the time to strike on getting the phone you want with the service provider you want. Otherwise you are going to be at the mercy of the big boys of the cell phone service providers.
When brand A sees their customers leaving them by the train loads, maybe they'll wake up and start acting right.
Competition is good for the economy besides being good for the customer base. Company's make a profit. Consumers get what they want. And everybody's happy.
But that's not how things are now. Speak up and let the fat cats know you ain't gonna take the crap any more. Power to the people!!!