Most Americans are in cell phone jail

Picking your phone’s locks
Termination fees are not the providers’ only trick to win forced loyalty, however. In fact, they have become a bit of a red herring in the cell phone jail debate.  With monthly bills creeping up towards $100, a $175 cancellation fee doesn’t sound so bad. Increasingly, cell phone jail is much more a function of hardware than contracts.  Paying a $175 fee is one thing; throwing out fairly new $500 handset is quite another.

Isn’t it amazing what phones can do today?  They can pull up Web pages in a moving car.  Take pictures and videos. Schedule appointments.  Even give directions.  It’s a wonder these smart phones can’t be used to make dinner or launch rockets.  And yet, there is one thing these technological marvels can’t do. They can’t work with anyone else’s network. 

A T-Mobile phone usually won’t work on Cingular’s network.  Verizon phones won’t work on either of those networks.  The lack of interoperability might remind old-time techies of the days before the Internet, when you’d never imagine trying to make an Apple computer talk to a Microsoft-powered PC.  That language barrier is a relic now.  How can these incredibly sophisticated cell phones be so unsophisticated in this one way?

Well, it’s intentional.  Cell phones are locked down by cellular providers with special software that prevents them from being used on other networks.  In this realm, there isn’t even a pretense by cell phone providers about their intentions.  The software is called “locking” software.  With consumers now paying $500 or more for these not-so-smart-after-all smart phones, locking software is the best tool yet cell phone companies have invented to lock up consumers.  Even after a consumer’s contract has run out, even after a consumer finds a competitor with a much cheaper per-minute plan, or much more reliable coverage, phone locks are still a major deterrent.  You have to swallow hard to throw a fully functional $500 phone into the trash.

With that kind of money at stake, clever engineers (hackers! But good hackers!) have jumped in and worked up a work-around.  There are ways to trick phones into ignoring the unlocking software.  Internet sites sell such services for as little as $5.      

Naturally, cell phone providers have spent a lot of time and killed a lot of trees trying to argue that use of unlocking tricks is illegal. Specifically, their lawyers have argued that unlocking software violates of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was designed to keep thieves from circumventing software used to prevent pirating of movie DVDs, music CDs, and software. 

Let’s look at this argument more closely.  According to the industry, you paid $500 for a phone, but you’re not allowed to type in a small string of characters into the handset which allows you to use the phone as you wish. 

Jennifer Granick, a high-profile lawyer based at Stanford University who often defends computer hackers, took on this argument in 2006.  She suggested that courts had already rejected a similar argument from computer printer maker Lexmark, which fought to stop generic ink cartridges from working in its printers. Courts had also ruled in favor of generic garage door opener makers.

In late 2006, the federal government sided with Granick, deciding that unlocking a phone was not a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. By then, some companies were already starting to give in and give unlock codes to consumers who were clever enough to ask for them. Others firms were still stingy about it, but couldn’t prevent would-be unlockers from buying the software. Consumer advocates claimed victory. So did environmentalists, who saw new hope that fully-functioning phones wouldn’t end up in landfills quite so often, as they could now be re-sold and re-used.  Many hoped that cell phones had been set free.

Not quite.  The phones, as sold, are still hamstrung with locking software by default.  Only those who know enough to ask ever consider using their phones on a competitor’s network. Despite the fanfare surrounding Granick’s case in techie circles, the vast majority of Americans still think cell hardware is limited to use with a single carrier. But now you know better. From Gotcha to Got Them!

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