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

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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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