At the beginning of this year we shared that it became illegal to unlock cellphones for the purposes of taking them to a different carrier. Obviously this is a contentious issue, and most folks were outraged, (or at least mildly annoyed). It was one of the hottest discussion topics of the early part of 2013. In fact, it even ended up the subject of a massive petition which made its way to the White House. As it turns out, the Obama Administration was in agreement with most of the general public that cell phone carriers in the U.S. need to start unlocking cell phones for customers. Several actions were taken, including a push from the White House to get new regulations passed at the FCC. Also, a couple of bills were introduced in Congress on the subject in a rare bi-partisan approach, but nothing actually got accomplished.
It seems that the White House is done waiting for Congress to get anything passed, and are finally following up on the subject to keep the ball rolling. This time the Obama Administration filed its own petition with the Federal Communications Commission pressuring them to require Carriers to allow customers to unlock their phones if they choose to do so. Here's a quote with a few more details,
It's at least encouraging to see that something is being done, even if the process is glacially slow...
Source: Washington Post
Anyone else find the flipflop on this issue to be comical??