T-Mobile jumps on the bandwagon, throws the book at prepaid unlockers

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Neutral

Cliff @ Aug 6th 2008 9:35PM

I don't understand.. There were court rulings saying that a user can legally unlock their own phone. These people are legally buying the phones, then (according to prior court rulings) legally unlocking them, then legally selling them after they are done with them.

I'm tired of all these silly lawsuits...

Highly Ranked

BlissX @ Aug 6th 2008 9:48PM

If that were true, you could unlock your phone from day 1 of service, which is not the case.

You have to wait 90 days with T-Mobile to have them give you an unlock code.

Let alone, I doubt Fone Xchange and ASPAC are legally unlocking them.

Neutral

spyder91 @ Aug 7th 2008 2:02AM

This is not about them unlocking phones specifically, it's about them unlocking heavily branded/subsidized pre-paid phones which the sells at a loss with the intent of making up the margin on calling cards. By taking these phones off of the network the carrier intended, they don't get that calling card revenue and end up just bleeding money over these.

If the companies had paid the full price the carrier would normally charge for the phones out of contract/non pre-paid branded T-Mobile probably wouldn't care one bit.

Neutral

squiggleslash @ Aug 7th 2008 8:32AM

Am I the only person interpretting Cliff's question as asking what legal leg T-Mobile has to stand on, not whether T-Mobile is in the (moral) right or not?

I'm not sure either Cliff. You don't sign a contract when buying the phones, and the US Copyright Office has specifically ruled that unlocking cellphones is exempt from DMCA prosecution - the only law I can think of that would otherwise apply. While the exemption has some caveats, notably that it only applies to phones you own (you can't unlock for others as a commercial enterprise), at the stage people are talking about above, they are unlocking phones they themselves own.

Even if it were to be found illegal, it's also open to question whether T-Mobile can do anything about it. It's no more difficult to have the phones unlocked in the destination country than it is to have them unlocked here. The only difference is that the person reselling the phones will need a partner in a country with no unlocking laws.

The real solution is for mobile phone operators to start doing away with the subsidized phone model, which achieves little but to push up monthly subscriptions and prepaid charges anyway. Subsidized phones may lower the barrier to entry, but they undercut the usability of the service and encourage wasteful practices, such as yearly phone upgrades and treating the phones themselves as disposable. With enough unlocked GSM phones in circulation, the need to lower the barrier to entry is reduced anyway - just start selling SIM cards, and let people use old, unlocked, phones if they really can't afford a new one.

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