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Starting Today, Carriers Must Abide By New Cellphone Unlocking Standards

Starting Today, Carriers Must Abide By New Cellphone Unlocking Standards

Posted February 11, 2015 at 7:02pm by iClarified
The deadline for carriers to comply with the CTIA's consumer code regarding cellphone unlocking has arrived.

In December 2013, thanks to pressure from the FCC, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon Wireless agreed to adopt a voluntary set of six principles for unlocking of consumers’ mobile phones and tablets.

Starting today, in accordance with that agreement, the carriers must unlock devices for both postpaid and prepaid customers.


As agreed, carriers will unlock postpaid customer devices after the fulfillment of the applicable postpaid service contract, device financing plan, or payment of applicable early termination fee. Carriers will unlock prepaid mobile wireless devices no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time, payment or usage requirements.

In addition, clear device unlocking instructions are to be posted on the website of each carrier and the unlock should take place within two days.

Notably, military members qualify for an unlock after providing proof of deployment, regardless of their contract status.

You can read the full details below...

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MOBILE WIRELESS DEVICE UNLOCKING
Each wireless provider will abide by the following standards regarding the ability of customers, former customers, and individual owners of eligible devices to unlock phones and tablets, (“mobile wireless devices”) that are locked by or at the direction of the carrier. It should be noted that carriers typically use different frequencies and air interface technologies to provide wireless network access. Accordingly, a device that works on one carrier’s network may not be technologically compatible with another carrier’s network. “Unlocking” a device refers only to disabling software that would prevent a consumer from attempting to activate a device designed for one carrier’s network on another carrier’s network, even if that network is technologically compatible. In other words, “unlocking” a device will not necessarily make a device interoperable with other networks-a device designed for one network is not made technologically compatible with another network merely by “unlocking” it. Additionally, unlocking a device may enable some functionality of the device but not all (e.g., an unlocked device may support voice services but not data services when activated on a different network).


Each wireless provider agrees to abide by the following six principles:

(1) Disclosure. Each carrier will post on its website its clear, concise, and readily accessible policy on postpaid and prepaid mobile wireless device unlocking;

(2) Postpaid Unlocking Policy. Carriers upon request, will unlock mobile wireless devices or provide the necessary information to unlock their devices for their customers and former customers in good standing and individual owners of eligible devices after the fulfillment of the applicable postpaid service contract, device financing plan, or payment of applicable early termination fee.

(3) Prepaid Unlocking Policy. Carriers, upon request, will unlock prepaid mobile wireless devices no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time, payment or usage requirements.

(4) Notice. Carriers that lock devices will clearly notify customers that their devices are eligible for unlocking at the time when their devices are eligible for unlocking or automatically unlock devices remotely when devices are eligible for unlocking, without additional fee. Carriers reserve the right to charge non-customers/non-former-customers with a reasonable fee for unlocking requests. Notice to prepaid customers may occur at point of sale, at the time of eligibility, or through a clear and concise statement of policy on the carrier’s website.

(5) Response Time. Within two business days after receiving a request, carriers will unlock eligible mobile wireless devices or initiate a request to the OEM to unlock the eligible device, or provide an explanation of why the device does not qualify for unlocking, or why the carrier reasonably needs additional time to process the request.

(6) Deployed Personnel Unlocking Policy. Carriers will unlock mobile wireless devices for deployed military personnel who are customers in good standing upon provision of deployment papers.

Carriers reserve the right to decline an unlock request if they have a reasonable basis to believe the request is fraudulent or the device is stolen. Carriers further agree to implement three of the standards articulated above within 3 months from February 11, 2014. Carriers further commit to implement the remainder of the principles within 12 months from February 11, 2014.
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[via Electronista]

Starting Today, Carriers Must Abide By New Cellphone Unlocking Standards
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Comments (16)
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Bernard
Bernard - February 11, 2015 at 9:23pm
That's standard behavior in France for now about ten years: the law mandates that all carriers must unlock any phone for free, whatever the contract, 6 months after activation; they must also unlock it before, on request, for a fee currently limited to (meaning equal to
Bernard
Bernard - February 11, 2015 at 9:26pm
Sorry, my previous post was truncated (iClarified seems not to like smileys...). The cost for early unlocking is limited to 70€ in France. Of course you still has to pay your contract to its normal end but, when travelling for example, you may switch to a low-cost local carrier instead of paying roaming charges (which, by the way, will soon disapear all over Europeean Union)
Bernard
Bernard - February 11, 2015 at 9:28pm
Hey, 70€ means 70 Euros, of course. The Euro sign seems not to be recognised by iClarified...
gamerscul9870
gamerscul9870 - February 11, 2015 at 8:52pm
Bet they want them to be as good as t-mobile.
tng
tng - February 12, 2015 at 5:58pm
How is T-Mobile any good. It has the most drop calls in comparison to all cellular phones and it may have some of the major city but anywhere outside that is total bogus. T-Mobile will still be the same be the end of the day, Bad Customer Service, Bad Policies and some crazy CEO.
te72s
te72s - February 12, 2015 at 10:29pm
Where are you living in Alaska? You obviously don't know what you are talking about.
gamerscul9870
gamerscul9870 - February 12, 2015 at 11:07pm
T-mobile is one of the best things that happened. They weren't fking around when they said #wewontstop improving like the UNcarrier. Whatever they made new, others try to copy. Att is greedy, sprint is the worst out of any without a doubt, and Verizon tricks you with untrained service. From where I live, tmobile is data strong like they said and forever lives on. No matter where I go, I get perfect coverage, but best yet I did use test drive and was stunned how fast it was compared to there's. Hence even charts from others perspective view say it all.
 Geoffrey
Geoffrey - February 11, 2015 at 8:33pm
Meaningless
AEB
AEB - February 11, 2015 at 7:22pm
...it's a long time coming.. FINALLY! ...still hate Corporate ATT and Sprint >really being the worst carrier in US -period! ...GSM still rules, globally!!
AppleGuy299
AppleGuy299 - February 11, 2015 at 9:41pm
AT&T is GSM. But you are correct Sprint and AT&T suck...
gamerscul9870
gamerscul9870 - February 12, 2015 at 11:31am
I always wanted to go to tmobile. Thank god I chose right, sprint though, you must mean their service sucks. Iphone has the advantage to use lte, but trying to get signal and the speed it a different story.
Jacob
Jacob - February 12, 2015 at 11:45am
This makes the Sprint iPhone worth more, since it supports more international bands than the other carriers. Also the top carriers in the world are CDMA.
iProService
iProService - February 11, 2015 at 7:17pm
So with this ruling, will Sprint unlock their iPhone 4S, 5, and up for domestic use? Up through yesterday, they still did not and nothing indicates their policy nor attitude has changed.
MOAMMED BU-HILAL
MOAMMED BU-HILAL - February 11, 2015 at 7:20pm
I hope Apple take care of the other features such as iMessage and FaceTime services a lot of service provider disables it.
Jan
Jan - February 11, 2015 at 7:57pm
That's ur provider not Apple.. Buy ur iPhone from outside Middle East and problem solved..
iProService
iProService - February 12, 2015 at 5:43pm
It's not where the phone is from, it's a carrier bundle restriction in accordance with local law and religion.
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