It is Now Legal to Unlock Your Cellphone in the US

[dgstorm]

As of Friday, August 1st, it is now legal for US consumers to unlock their cellphones and take them to other carriers. Both the US Senate and the House of Representatives (in an ultra-rare bipartisan decision) signed off on the bill, and Friday was the day that President Obama signed it into law.

The White House commented on the bill signing, calling it a "triple win" - one for the American consumer, one for wireless competition, and the other for bipartisan congressional action. (Did you see any flying pigs this weekend?)

Here's a quote with a few more details,

What all this means is starting today, we now have the right to unlock our smartphones — or pay someone else to do it for us — without fear of prosecution from the law. To be fair, cellphone unlocking has only been illegal for a little over a year now, this was after a previous exemption to 1998′s Digital Millennium Copyright Act expired back in late 2012. With a fresh new exemption now in place, we are now free to unlock our cellphones until 2015, in which case the whole process starts all over again.

Keep in mind that while it’s legal to unlock your cellphone in order to take to other service providers, you’ll first need to make sure it’s been paid off with your current provider. After that, you can either unlock your own, or a used smartphone you bought from someone off of Craigslist. ~ Phandroid

Of course, you need to remember that not all carriers use the same radio technology, so you can't just take a Sprint phone and use it on AT&T. You will need to be cognizant of whether your device's radio is GSM or CDMA (or both) and plan accordingly.

 

[mountainbikermark]

My cdma Note2 works fine on gsm T-Mobile. I suppose it's the world radios?

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[johnomaz]

How does one go about doing this though? Can we go into a carrier and ask for it to be done and it gets done?

 

[mountainbikermark]

How does one go about doing this though? Can we go into a carrier and ask for it to be done and it gets done?

I simply put a T-Mobile SIM card in mine and the guy at the T-Mobile store added their network into my settings. I set the network to world and it automatically picks out which network my SIM card uses and changes accordingly to that network.

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[johnomaz]

I simply put a T-Mobile SIM card in mine and the guy at the T-Mobile store added their network into my settings. I set the network to world and it automatically picks out which network my SIM card uses and changes accordingly to that network.

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On nice. It sounds like the carrier you are going to is able to unlock it to their network upon activation.

I have no reason to do that unless I am lucky enough to travel outside the US but at least those who do have the need can do it now.

 

[akhenax]

So....

The question I have is,
can I unlock my Verizon Moto X, that is bought and paid for, and if so, how?

I didn't see my phone listed here:
https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/87215

 

[shockracer]

I bet VZW still won't let any other phone or device on there network that isn't from them.

 

[mountainbikermark]

I bet VZW still won't let any other phone or device on there network that isn't from them.

Agreed on that. A few years back they implemented a policy to allow phones from other carriers on their network once the said model passed their testing to make sure it'd work. To date not 1 phone ever passed the test. This was back before SIM cards on Verizon so the new law may very well make it so Verizon has to allow other carrier phones that have the proper radio for their network

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[shockracer]

Agreed on that. A few years back they implemented a policy to allow phones from other carriers on their network once the said model passed their testing to make sure it'd work. To date not 1 phone ever passed the test. This was back before SIM cards on Verizon so the new law may very well make it so Verizon has to allow other carrier phones that have the proper radio for their network

Sent from my LG-D801 using Tapatalk

If that happens, it would be the best for consumers as they could switch carriers at any time. Fingers crossed!

 

[mountainbikermark]

If that happens, it would be the best for consumers as they could switch carriers at any time. Fingers crossed!

When I switched to T-Mobile I was using my Verizon Note2 until I decided to try out a G2, ended up liking it much better than the Note2.

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[akhenax]

I think something may need to be cleared up here:
There are two types of unlocks. There is:
1. Carrier Unlock, where you can bring a phone to any carrier as long as it has the capabilities to do so.
2. Bootloader Unlock, whereas you can modify system properties to obtain root.

I think this law has to do with Carrier unlock.

 

[grenefroggie]

This law has to do with carrier unlock.

If you are in a contract or owe money on the phone it will be very hard for you to get your phone carrier unlocked.

Once you have met your commitment with your carrier, you should be able to go to your carrier and have them remove the SIM lock on the phone.

With Verizon phones, being that a good portion of them are world capable, this unlocks lots of options. But even if you carrier unlock your phone, you have to make sure your phone model supports the carrier you wish to move to. It won't work on all Verizon phones, but I know a lot of the newer phones (Note 3 for example) supports EDGE/GSM/UMTS/HSPA in common frequencies used around the world (850/900/1800/1900/2100Mhz).

 

[tja]

If I am not mistaken, all Verizon 4G phones are already unlocked. All of Verizon's 4G/LTE are unlocked for use anywhere in the world. Use any sim in the phone from any country and it will work".

 

[grenefroggie]

That is very possible. I could of sworn they were locked, but I am not a VZW customer.

 

[mountainbikermark]

If I am not mistaken, all Verizon 4G phones are already unlocked. All of Verizon's 4G/LTE are unlocked for use anywhere in the world. Use any sim in the phone from any country and it will work".

Correct. The world phone radio(s) is the key.

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