Phone-Unlocking Bill Clears Congress, Goes to Obama
Jul 25, 2014, 12:54 PM by Eric M. Zeman
The U.S. House of Representatives today unanimously passed bill S517, which makes it legal once again for consumers to unlock their cell phones. The Senate passed the bill on July 15. With both arms of congress approving the bill, it is up to President Obama to sign it into law. Unlocking phones became illegal in early 2013 when the Library of Congress allowed an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to expire. The bill still falls under the purview of the DMCA and leaves the ultimate decision regarding unlocking up to the Library of Congress. If Obama signs the bill into law immediately, it will be legal to unlock cell phones only for a period of about 14 months before the policy must be reviewed once again by the Library of Congress. The wording of the bill mandates the policy be reviewed once every three years. The NTIA and the FCC have each separately mandated that wireless network operators make it easier for consumers to unlock their devices. Most of the largest carriers have already begun putting policies in place that allow customers to unlock their devices once terms of their agreement are met.
Comments
Of course it matters...
The "unlocking policies" the carriers, and their shill the CTIA, have come up with are scams for the carriers forcing you one way or the other to take out service with them in order to unlock a handset. Unless of course you are the 5 percent of users who know you need your device unlocked before your contract runs out. Most people don't and haven't, and wont keep service with the old carrier in order to unlock it either so they take the phone home and keep it, prolly unused in a drawer or they agree to the reaming and trade it in for the $16 they are told it is worth.
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I am all for this bill, but...
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Doesn't matter
Since carriers don't make mo...
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Global Use
John B.