
Obama administration urges FCC to require carriers to unlock mobile devices - hanapbuhay
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/obama-administration-urges-fcc-to-require-carriers-to-unlock-mobile-devices/2013/09/17/17b4917e-1fd4-11e3-b7d1-7153ad47b549_print.html
======
sinak
So, just a quick bit of context here. While the NTIA ask for a rulemaking from
the FCC is awesome, we'll see whether the FCC actually act upon it. Based on
the most recent statement from the FCC, they're still trying to get carriers
to come to a voluntary agreement (i.e. regulate themselves) which would mean
less work for the FCC.

Either way, the real issue at the heart of unlocking is fixing the anti-
circumvention provisions of the DMCA, which would open up the market so that
private parties can freely develop and distribute unlocking software. We've
been lobbying for this in DC making some degree of progress, but even the best
legislation out there right now is quite far from perfect.

~~~
pintglass
They are not going to change anything related to the DMCA as part of this. It
is totally just posturing, and get ready for more of it- they need a lot of PR
for people to forget that Putin made Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace
Prize, look like a warmongering asshole. That and the naval base shooting has
made for a rough past 2 weeks on the administration.

But I think that everyone should seize this opportunity to make them put their
money where their mouth is. Demand to your senators and the administration
that not only allow device unlocking, but allow choosing cable channels we
want to pay for, get rid of all unwarranted software and tech patents, make
digital rights management uncovered under the law, and stay the heck away from
the internet except to enforce the protection of children from predators, but
in a way that doesn't involve nonsensical dns hijinks- just track them down
and jail them or remove their sex organs.

~~~
davvolun
As a general supporter of Obama, I still don't understand him being awarded
that prize...

------
unreal37
Hey White House, can I have my privacy back? I'll settle for a locked cell
phone if I can call friends without it being reported back to you.

~~~
britta
Yeah, I have to wonder if their renewed interest in this is a PR move to
distract from more serious tech issues.

~~~
rayiner
Because you can't care about one tech issue without marching in intellectual
lockstep with the nerderatti on all tech issues.

------
comex
For what it's worth, as someone who does not unlock, I see this as potentially
negative. Why? Because the so-called "Unlocking Technology Act", among other
initiatives, has been using the clout of the unlocking issue to promote
essentially a wholesale repeal of the DMCA anticircumvention, citing its
interference with exploit-based software unlocks as a core justification. This
recommendation would require carriers to provide unlocks themselves rather
than making hackers do it, which would be much better for unlockers, but
obviate the need for circumvention. Yet all the other other use cases harmed
by anticircumvention would remain, many of which affect me personally (and
probably many HN users), but which might not gather as broad public
understanding and support as unlocking currently does.

~~~
gergles
The anticircumvention requirement is one of the worst parts of the DMCA. If
that was repealed as a result of this, I'd be _thrilled_.

Can you elaborate on how this eviscerates anticircumvention?

~~~
comex
What my comment says is that this (the NTIA recommendation that is the subject
of the article) might obviate part of the impetus for a pre-existing
initiative ([http://fixthedmca.org/unlocking-technology-
act.html](http://fixthedmca.org/unlocking-technology-act.html)) that would
essentially repeal anticircumvention, and thus could be a bad thing.

Edit: If you want to know what the Unlocking Technology Act would do, see
[http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-
bill/1892/text](http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-bill/1892/text),
it's pretty short.

~~~
pessimizer
That seems to be the same POV that the Librarian took in not renewing the
exemption (link from elsewhere in thread): [http://www.eweek.com/mobile/fcc-
suggests-congress-create-a-b...](http://www.eweek.com/mobile/fcc-suggests-
congress-create-a-bill-to-make-cell-phone-unlocking-legal/)

------
cmsimike
I no longer think "hey! awesome the government is trying to help us out"
anymore when I read articles like this. I only think "I wonder what sort of
benefits the government and associated business get because of this."

~~~
nolite
Funny... i'm also thinking "What is he about to try to ream us from behind
with now, that he's trying to make us look the other way for".

Yeah.. I admit, I voted for him in 2008..

~~~
Raticide
You think the other presidential choice would have been better?

You really only have a choice between two identical assholes. There's no point
in voting unless America drastically changes its voting system to something
more democratic.

~~~
saraid216
> You really only have a choice between two identical assholes. There's no
> point in voting unless America drastically changes its voting system to
> something more democratic.

Some people insist that the entire point of democracy is to restrain power. In
that sense, voting for the lesser of two evils is a _perfect_ representation
of democracy: you're voting for which set of restraints to put on, not what
kind of future you want.

~~~
saym
I've definitely heard that argument before. I always conclude with the person
that our definitions of democracy are not similar.

~~~
saraid216
Have you ever tried explicitly defining democracy as part of your
conversation? I find it usually helps. Or at least makes them very quiet as
they realize they have no idea what they're talking about beyond parroting
something they heard once that sounded good as a teenager.

------
MichaelGG
>Some argue that making it legal to unlock cellphones could make it too easy
for consumers to take copyrighted software between carriers

Eh, like what exactly? AT&T's crappy map software?

~~~
spo81rty
Yeah great point. They are worried about the crap we wish didn't even come on
the phones to begin with.

~~~
fleitz
So true, eventually I could see a suit being filed that removing some crappy
software is creating a derivative work.

------
bedhead
The consumer side of me likes this...the libertarian side of me laments it.
Why not just go ahead and force Gilette to make their razor's handles fit
Schick blades, or have Macs come pre-installed with Windows too, etc? Maybe
not 100% perfect analogies, but you get the drift. It's hard to root for the
carriers but I dont see how phone locking is entirely unreasonable, and I
struggle to see how it's worthy of legislation that outright bans it.

~~~
tsotha
It's a little bit different, though, because the government is already
enforcing spectrum controls. It's not like you can go out and start your own
wireless network on in Verizon's band - the government won't allow it.

~~~
bedhead
Except that spectrum has been deemed a public good. The phones that utilize
that spectrum are not.

------
RexRollman
Personally, a bigger deal for me would be if they required the carriers to go
to move to a "pay to send" for text messages. I hate it that someone else can
force me to incur a charge for unwanted text messages.

~~~
warfangle
Which carrier does this? I literally cannot think of one, even down to the
bare-minimum $15/mo plans from, say, Virgin Mobile. It strikes me as one of
those situations that screams "You're being scammed." Is this some flyover
local carrier that I'm not aware of (I hear it complained about all the time),
or is it some archaic and masochistic plan that people bend themselves over
backward to whip themselves with?

Or is it simply that those are the plans that don't offer text messaging? In
which case, situations like spamming black pages at remote fax machines come
to mind. And all the legal ramifications involved.

~~~
nerfhammer
Yes, you are being scammed, and all US carriers charge for incoming text
messages.

AT&T: $0.20 per SMS or $0.30 per MMS, both ways. or text plan for unlimited
messages for an additional $20/month

[http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=52588&cv=820#fbi...](http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=52588&cv=820#fbid=R58fP1M93Bv)

Verizon: $0.20 per SMS or $0.25 per MMS, both ways. or text plans an
additional $5-$20/month, no unlimited option.

[http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/planMessagingOverla...](http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/planMessagingOverlay.jsp)

Sprint: $0.20 per SMS or $0.25 per MMS, both ways. or text plans an additional
$5-$20/month, with $20/month being unlimited.

[http://www.sprint.com/landings/attachables/](http://www.sprint.com/landings/attachables/)

T-Mobile: $0.20 per SMS or MMS, both ways. I think all current plans have
unlimited text though, not sure.

[http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-2825](http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-2825)

~~~
rycho
I remember getting unlimited texting for $5 a month from Verizon circa 2005,
and it was $0.10 per text without the plan. Why are phone plans just getting
worse...

~~~
nerfhammer
Here's Consumer Reports complaining about this in 2008:

[http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/aboutus/mission/viewpoint...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/aboutus/mission/viewpoint/why-
text-messaging-is-too-expensive/overview/text-messaging-ov.htm)

------
D9u
I was completely unaware of the legal issues surrounding cell phone network
unlocking. I remember that, in the past, all you had to do was ask your cell
carrier to unlock your device and they would comply.

That the present legislation has been enacted shows how some of the people
involved in enacting this travesty are as clueless as I am.

[http://www.eweek.com/mobile/fcc-suggests-congress-create-
a-b...](http://www.eweek.com/mobile/fcc-suggests-congress-create-a-bill-to-
make-cell-phone-unlocking-legal/)

[http://www.ibtimes.com/phone-unlocking-more-popular-ever-
bec...](http://www.ibtimes.com/phone-unlocking-more-popular-ever-becoming-
illegal-january-1383147)

~~~
eli
Yeah, it was weird that the Copyright Office declined to renew the exemption
for phone unlocking. Yes, Congress created the problem with the DMCA, but they
did specifically set up the Librarian with the power to fix oversights like
this. (And I do personally think it was at least initially an oversight and
not intentional.)

~~~
britta
They did renew the exemption, but they limited it to only apply to devices
purchased before January 2013. Their mandate is to only provide exemptions for
cases that really really need it, and their reasoning for limiting the
exemption was that carriers had relaxed their policies for officially
unlocking phones (such as AT&T starting to unlock out-of-contract phones).

Here's the statement that the Copyright Office published:
[http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2012/2012-26308_PI.pdf](http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2012/2012-26308_PI.pdf)
\- the unlocking exemption is discussed on pages 16-20.

------
Aldo_MX
Am I the only one that is glad to read this news?

~~~
u2328
I think people are glad, sure. It's just that their highly skeptical of
anything the government does anymore. With good reason.

~~~
u2328
It's just that _they 're_... (god, that's embarrassing)

------
dnautics
Instead of requiring carriers to unlock devices, he could just announce that
the DOJ would fail to prosecute anyone who does choose to do it. It's possible
to right a wrong _without_ asserting additional executive powers.

~~~
ISL
Selective enforcement of laws is trouble in the long term. It transfers power
from the legislature to the executive, and tends to yield situations in which
everyone is guilty of something.

~~~
dnautics
it already happens. Drug laws, etc. I'm sorry, but you have your causality
backwards. Official (or unofficial) selective enforcement of the laws is a
symptom of questionable laws, not a cause.

~~~
ISL
I disagree with respect to causality. If selective enforcement were not
possible, then it couldn't happen. Imagine a (flawed, but fair) system in
which, if an executive selectively failed to prosecute anyone for violating a
law, then the law is nullified, just as (approximately) in the arena of
trademark. An executive bound to enforce the law would result in more
citizen/legislative/lobbying effort directed toward implementing better laws
and fixing those that were broken or out of date.

In practice, executive (and judicial (and in general!)) discretion is
important. As an example, mandatory minimum sentencing has attracted
criticism. An adaptive front-line response is a good thing, but only to a
point. Leaving vague or unenforced laws on the books has the potential for
both abuse and compassion (see national monuments and the Antiquities act, for
a non-judicial example).

~~~
dnautics
>An executive bound to enforce the law would result in more
citizen/legislative/lobbying effort directed toward implementing better laws
and fixing those that were broken or out of date.

Or, the executive could choose not to enforce those laws (and screw people's
lives over in the process) _and_ take the initiative to scrub them from the
books by introducing bills, etc. But you're right. Politicians are not usually
decent people, and it's unreasonable to expect them to not play politics with
people's lives.

------
pessimizer
>Some argue that making it legal to unlock cellphones could make it too easy
for consumers to take copyrighted software between carriers.

My carrier does not have code on my phone, and my carrier does not need code
on my phone.

~~~
Aldo_MX
Locked bloatware it's code for them and they need it to increase their profit
margin, that's the ugly part of this story :(

~~~
hrasyid
how does bloatware exactly increase the profit margin?

~~~
chrismonsanto
For those of us without smartphones, they increase the profit margin by
tricking users into buying things. All of the software on my gophone is trial
only, and it is extremely easy to extend the trial by accident. Why on earth
would anyone want to spend $3.99 to have an extra 10 days to 'evaluate' the
shitty software on the phone? And WHY would this purchase be recurring?

And no, you can't remove the trials.

------
shmerl
What about repealing the whole DMCA 1201? It's not FCC's job to fix crooked
laws. There is a Congress for this.

------
greenyoda
You can already buy unlocked cell phones on Amazon and elsewhere, if you pay
the full price of the phone. For example, Amazon sells an unlocked iPhone 5
(16GB) for $665.55. If a carrier gives you hundreds of dollars of subsidies
for a phone, they should only be required to unlock it after your contract has
terminated.

~~~
shreyansj
The subsidy is recovered over the term of the contract. What does carrier
unlocking has to do with it? Even if I unlock my subsidized phone outside of
official methods, I still have to fulfill my end of the contract.

~~~
greenyoda
The carrier might not be able to charge a large enough early-termination fee
on the contract to fully reimburse them for the cost of an expensive phone.

~~~
gergles
Then they should charge an ETF that will allow them to recoup their costs and
not trump up some imaginary "copyright violation" boogeyman that stops me from
using my phone as I see fit.

------
bri3d
I think they'll need to work on their definition and enforcement actions if
this is to become a reality.

Verizon are already supposed to unlock their LTE devices in exchange for the
use of their LTE bands, but many Verizon LTE devices are crippled in software
when unlocked (with the notable exception of iPhones where Apple control the
software).

As an example, the Verizon HTC 8X does not allow the user to alter the MMS
gateway or roaming options and Verizon Samsung Galaxy phones used to need to
be rooted to change the APN for data.

Sadly the mobile phone market is enough of a cabal at this point that more and
more specific regulation might be the only way to make competitive consumer-
friendly measures like this work.

~~~
iancarroll
Why not just define that the phone must allow the user to change provider
settings that might otherwise be specific to one carrier?

------
chiph
Well, that's the end of $1 phones. The carriers will raise handset prices.

~~~
throwaway2048
More correctly, they cannot ammortize the price of the phone indefinately
anymore.

$1 phones are cheap upfront but you pay far more in the long run via lockin.

~~~
chiph
I think it's hard to say. Depends on the phone, the plan, and so on. Not a lot
of transparency in the process -- An unlocked iPhone is $650, or $27/month
over the life of the contract. That would likely make up a big portion of the
monthly bill, were it to be broken out separately in the statement.

------
tamersalama
How does this make it easier for the NSA to track US Citizens down? I mean
would meta-data or meta-data collection be any different if the phones were
locked?

