The Don’t Lock My Freedom website purports to represent consumer interests, when it is quite possible the net effect of its advocacy will be to raise initial phone prices and long term service costs.
An article on Cartt.ca highlights these key flaws in the overly simplistic viewpoint that appears to have motivated the proposal to require wireless service providers to unlock phones.
The organizers of the website and the legislative supporters ignore the fact that there are already lots of alternate channels for people to buy phones without locks. There are service providers who have announced that they will unlock phones for their subscribers. Thanks to on-line third party sites like Tiger Direct, anyone who wants can buy unlocked phones, even if they aren’t in major metropolitan areas. Do a search for “unlock codes” and you will find lots of options at pretty low prices.
In other words, the marketplace is working without government intervention to dictate specific business models to the service providers. Now, I know that some will argue that most phones are being bought from the wireless service providers and have contracts associated with them. Maybe that is because people like the subsidies that they are receiving? Or they appreciate the ability to call the service providers’ technical support lines and have them recognize the model number and provide help.
Michael Geist is quoted in the Cartt.ca article saying:
In certain respects, this was an odd question to even have to ask. No one would ever question whether consumers have the right to tinker with their car or to use the same television if they switch providers from cable to satellite, yet the wireless industry somehow convinced the public that unlocking their phones – consumers’ own property – was wrong.
How many people who buy a Chevy expect a Mercedes dealer to fix their transmission for free? Or vice versa? Would a Ford dealer even be expected to be able to diagnose what is wrong with your Lambourgini? Is the next private member’s bill going to force car dealers to get rid of their oil change and service departments?
The metaphor for TVs just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny at all – unless Professor Geist has figured out a way to use his Bell TV set-top box for Rogers cable service, or vice versa. Maybe that is another private member’s bill.
If a phone that was sold by Rogers is unlocked and now is getting used on the TELUS network, which customer service line should the consumer call to find out how to load a Facebook application? When the TELUS representative has to spend extra time trying to learn the menu system for a model that was never sold by them, who should pay for that call?
How many consumers will be told to take their phones back to the original store for help with the software?
Should you be able to unlock a phone is a very different question from the government dictating a specific business model that requires all phones to be unlocked. The right to unlock phones is part of the copyright reform act, Bill C-32.
The Cellular Freedom Act appears to be naively motivated and could ultimately inconvenience most consumers.
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There is no requirement in the bill that the wireless companies provide model-specific support for mobile phones that they do not themselves provide. If you unlock your phone and take it to a competitor’s network, it’s entirely possible that you’ll be on your own should your phone fail. That’s understood.
Some wireless companies may even refuse to allow ‘foreign’ phone on their network. That’s a business decision they will have to make. If there are ever a significant number of unlocked phones in the market, this will be a difficult choice to make, but market forces will prevail. There is nothing in the bill that would require otherwise.
Your car metaphor is flawed. Chevy would not be required to repair my Mercedes transmission, let alone for free. Mercedes would be required to allow me to take my car to any repair facility that I choose and is willing and capable to service my car. You also modified the television metaphor, but I dislike metaphors so I won’t get into them further.
Rogers claimed at CTS10 that they had to ‘respect the intellectual property’ of the cell phone manufacturers. Speaking as someone who works in the IP sector, this is bunk. It looks like a completely fabricated justification.
First of all, I would repeat what the previous commenter said: the bill does not seem to require carriers to provide support for phones not sold by them.
Secondly, why do carriers use SIM locks to begin with? They can customize the phones that they sell to their heart’s content, provide warranty service for them, etc etc, but you don’t need a lock for all that. If a carrier is concerned about the protection of hardware subsidies, they’re already protected by credit checks, contracts and early termination fees. So, why use locks?