If you were to buy a smartphone on contract with a carrier, chances are the phone will be locked to that particular carrier. This is to ensure that you can’t switch to a different carrier in hopes that you will stay on and keep using that carrier’s service. One way to go about that is to have the phone unlocked which was actually made illegal in 2013, but a bill signed by President Obama last year has made it legal once again.
So when can you start unlocking your phones, or better yet, when will all major carriers come to some kind of agreement that would streamline the process and make it easier for customers to unlock their mobile devices? Thankfully the CTIA has recently managed to gather the major carriers for a meeting and come 11th of February, unlocking your mobile device will be made a lot easier.
Now there are some caveats to this ruling and it doesn’t mean that you can get your phone unlocked anytime you want. For starters it requires that customers will have to either complete their contract or finish paying their installment plans in order for their phones to be unlocked. Carriers are also expected to notify customers in a “clear” way when they are eligible to have their mobile devices unlocked.
Ultimately each carrier will have their own policies, but for the most part those are the guidelines set out by the FCC. In the meantime customers signed to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, or US Cellular can head on over to the individual websites to find out the finer details.
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