FCC Pressures Wireless Industry To Voluntarily Unlock Phones

The new Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Tom Wheeler, wants the wireless phone industry to act before the holiday season, voluntarily unlocking customers’ wireless devices. In a letter to Steve Largent, head of wireless lobbying group CTIA, Wheeler recapped how the FCC has been working with the group for months on a consumer code amendment to address unlocking mobile wireless devices for customers who have fulfilled their contracts, noting that there apparently has been agreement on all except one provision: that the carriers either automatically unlock or notify customers when their devices are eligible for unlocking, without an additional fee. Without a provision to notify consumers when they are eligible to unlock their phones, Wheeler said, any voluntary amendment would be “a hollow shell.”