Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
US-based wireless carriers are now obligated to unlock their customer’s smartphones and tablets once their contracts are paid off, fulfilling a promise from last year and making it easier than ever to switch from one service provider to another.
The new policy, which came as part of a 2013 agreement with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), officially went into place on Wednesday and required carriers to either notify users when their devices are eligible to be unlocked, or to automatically unlock them remotely for free.
According to Engadget, seven US networks (AT&T, Bluegrass Cellular, Cellcom, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon) are honoring the agreement as of this week, letting customers opt to remove restrictions from their devices once they’ve fulfilled the terms of their agreement.
Some carriers are making it easy to unlock their phones. Sprint, for example, will automatically unlock SIM-based cellular service on devices purchased starting this week, and T-Mobile will be adding a do-it-yourself app to their newer handsets, the website added.
It won’t be easy in all cases, and customers should make sure to read the fine print. For instance, customers of prepaid phones such as Virgin Mobile and Cricket could be forced to wait as much as one year and keep their service active to a “reasonable” degree to qualify.
The requirements are part of the CTIA Wireless Association’s Consumer Code, and according to Ars Technica, the carriers were required to follow any three of the code’s six requirements by May 11, 2014 and all six of them by February 11, 2015.
According to the code, carriers must unlock paid-for devices once customers in good standing fulfill their “service contract, device financing plan, or payment of applicable early termination fee,” meaning that subscribers who agree to a long-term deal first must fulfill the terms of the contract before unlocking their device.
On the other hand, prepaid devices must be unlocked no later than one year after their initial activation. In both cases, all unlocking must be completed 48 hours after the carrier receives a request from the customer, and all carriers now have to inform customers of their policies.
“We are pleased the FCC acknowledged the participating wireless carriers met the deadlines to unlock their customers’ devices per the Consumer Code for Wireless Service,” Scott Bergmann, CTIA’s vice president for regulatory affairs, said in a statement, according to CNET. “We also remind consumers that an unlocked device does not necessarily mean an interoperable one since different carriers use different technologies and spectrum bands.”
As Engadget notes, thanks to last year’s cellphone unlocking law, customers do not have to go through their service provider in order to open up their devices for use on other networks. Users can have their smartphones and tablets unlocked without their carrier’s explicit permission, but doing so will almost certainly have some type of service fee attached to it.
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