Wireless Prepaid Access Enforcement Act of 2009. There’s a lot to it, and Jennifer Granick of Electronic Frontier Foundation has the analysis. The legislation appears to extend beyond mass traffickers. In other words, while one clause of the legislation would make expressly illegal the purchase of prepaid handsets with the intent to resell or redistribute, another would likely bar any kind of unlocking. Per the bill, it would be illegal for someone who
knowingly purchases and/or handles one or more wireless prepaid access devices for the purpose of, or as part of a scheme involving, modifying, removing, avoiding or overwriting installed software which is designed to cause any such device to operate as a wireless prepaid access device on the wireless network or networks for which such device was sold, unless such purchase or handling is authorized by the wireless service provider or device manufacturerThat describes the process of unlocking. I understand why carriers would want this. While they’re not losing tons of money like they are on mass unlockers, they’re still losing money when someone buys a single handset and then unlocks the phone. For instance, someone can purchase a Virgin Mobile phone from Target for far less than retail value. Virgin expects the customer to make up for the phone subsidy by purchasing minutes, but the customer can instantly go flash the phone to MetroPCS. Virgin is then out the difference between the purchase price and the cost of the phone. Because the bill would make the act of unlocking a prepaid phone expressly illegal, that would foist the investigation and prosecution costs on government entities (police, FBI, Justice Department). That means a heavier burden on taxpayers. That burden will no longer fall on the shoulders of the prepaid companies. That does seem like one of the less fair aspects of this bill. If companies want to protect their interests, it should be on their dime, not on the taxpayers’. It would seem that this bill, then would doubly burden American citizens. It would not only prohibit them from unlocking handsets if they are unhappy with a provider’s service, but it would also move the costs of prosecuting these newly defined crimes from the companies to the taxpayers. There might be balance somewhere in this issue, but it appears that it will not be found in the current legislative proposal.]]>
Posted in Consumer Issues
This is a VERY important issue. It will determine if the US wireless industry in general moves forward or goes back to the stone ages. Companies that are KNOWN for allowing unlocked/flashed phones on their network like Metro, Cricket, Pocket, Revol, Frawg/Ntelos, Air Voice Gsm, Locus Gsm, Simple Mobile will probably not like this as it can affect their business more directly then it will companies who are against it. Especially Pocket , who owns the popular cdma flashing software server Houdinisoft (which Metroflash is based on).
Flashing/unlocking is an industry on its own. Look at the intense iphone unlocking market alone.
But if anti unlocking/flashing carriers like Tracfone/Virgin Mobile want to argue to take the rights away from Joe Citizen, they can take a flying leap.
Their phones are so hard to unlock/flash that the average guy is wasting their time. It is the Traffickers they have troubles with.
The carriers/handset makers will use the following statements:
1)Phone traffickers hurt their bottomline. True.
2)Terrorists can use prepaid phones. HELL, so they can use laptops too. What are you going to do. Lock down every laptop? Apple already used this argument to try and quash jailbreaking.
Please.
3)Criminals. They can state that criminals sell stolen handsets and put them on other networks by unlocking and swapping sims/flashing cdma handsets.
It has been done, but to associate the general public as the equivalent of terrorists, traffickers and criminals.
That is not the point. There is a huge dfference from Joe Public wanting to unlock his handset to work on a new carrier then some theft ring that steals and rebrands thousands of handsets, some trafficker who buys and resells thousands of phones or some terrorist who uses an app to create mayhem.
This is a sticky issue. Hopefully, the extension for the DMCA unlocking issue will be granted.
If not , overnight a lot lot legal phone flashers and unlockers will become criminalized.
It saddens me that this sort of legislation can even be considered in our country. If a company chooses to sell something at a loss, it does so at their own risk. There is nothing to stop them from selling the phones at full price. There is no reason at all to allow any company to modify the First Sale Doctrine just to protect their bottom line.