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Starting This Week, Wireless Carriers Must Unlock Your Phone
HughPickens.com writes Andrew Moore-Crispin reports that beginning today, as result of an agreement major wireless carriers made with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in late 2013, wireless carriers in the US must unlock your phone as soon as a contract term is fulfilled if asked to do so unless a phone is connected in some way to an account that owes the carrier money. Carriers must also post unlocking policies on their websites (here are links for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile), provide notice to customers when their devices are eligible for unlocking, respond to unlock requests within two business days, and unlock devices for deployed military personnel. So why unlock your phone? Unlocking a phone allows it to be used on any compatible network, regardless of carrier which could result in significant savings. Or you could go with an MVNO, stay on the same network, and pay much less for the same cellular service.
Bummer, I deployed and made sure that my Sprint cell phone was unlocked prior to my deployment. I asked Apple and I asked Sprint, both verified that they were unlocked. ... Then Sprint sent an OTA update and locked it. When I called and complianed, they were a stone wall and absolutely refused to unlock my phone. Invoking the SCRA, I terminated my contract on my brand new iphone, took it to the store and sold it for $50 more than I paid for it. (wasn't expecting to actually make a profit on it). And signed up for another carrier that DIDN'T lock my phone. ... Problem solved. And I was even paid for my troubles. Of course, Sprint lost my family's business, so there's that.