Forget the Cellphone Fight — We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own

"Look, just because it's in your pocket and you get to use it as soon as you leave the store does not mean you own it."

So who owns it? When last I checked, there was no line of credit, I am allowed to sell the phone to someone else without informing the carrier, and I am responsible for repairing any damage or replacing the phone if it is rendered non-functional. It sounds like I paid the carrier's price, signed a contract, and then owned the phone (while being locked into a contract).

There is more to this than just the carrier's contract. Let's say I travel to another country, and I want to pay for a phone plan there so that I do not have to pay roaming charges. I'll need to unlock my phone to do that...and now by law I cannot (at least not here in America). For that matter, suppose I am here in America and I want to have two contracts with two different carriers on the same phone...once again, the law stops me. This is, plain and simple, a law that protects the carriers' business model in ways that other businesses are not protected.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the free market is relevant here. It is not a free market when some players get special privileges and protections not available to other players. Cell phone companies get lots of special privileges, and this is just one more to add to that list.

The traditional U.S. philosophy on property tends to be skeptical of these kinds of restrictions, and a number of them aren't enforceable, though it's gotten less skeptical lately (hence the emergence of things like homeowners' associations).

European property law was full of encumbrances on property: you could own all sorts of sub-holds and fiefdoms and whatnot. Much of that was thrown out in early U.S. law, in favor of a principle that each plot of land has one owner, who owns it fully in the clear, subject only to the superior sovereignty of the governments with jurisdiction. And then that person can sell the land fully, or rent it, but can't sell the complex kinds of partial ownership and sub-ownerships that were common in the UK. That persisted for a while, until contract law reinvented some of them a century or two later.

Why don't you read your contract and pay particular attention to the bit where it talks about transfer of title? As someone who doesn't sign these kinds of contracts and hasn't for years, I'm not sure what the exact position of the carrier is without downloading and analyzing a phone contract, which I don't feel like doing right now.

The differences from leasing a car are for obvious reasons. If you don't make the payments on a car, a repo guy comes along and takes your car away. Bit difficult to do that on a phone, so they hit you with an early termination fee instead and you agree to it as part of the contract terms.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the free market is relevant here. It is not a free market when some players get special privileges and protections not available to other players. Cell phone companies get lots of special privileges, and this is just one more to add to that list.

I didn't mention the free market, but since you bring it up, the players within the phone industry have similar privileges. Saying that they get different privileges from, say, auto retailers is pointless, because they're not int he same market. Although I'm no fan of the major cell companies, I could point out that they also bear the burden of paying billions up front for lease of spectrum, whereas manufacturers of cars just have to get the thing running and into the hands of the would-be driver, who then pays over time for road use through taxes on fuel etc.

You want to unlock the phone overseas, then do it overseas where you won't be subject to US law. You want to have two contracts on the same phone, the second one is going to be month-to-month by definition because the second carrier has no property interest in the phone. you can easily get out of your contract by paying the ETF.

As I said elsewhere, I don't like these contractual provisions either, which is why I don't enter into such contracts. I do own my own phone, because I paid for it. This is what people in other parts of the world do, because the rock-bottom prices (with contract!) are not on offer in most other parts of the world.

Yes you have. You "paid for it" when you signed the contract, to which you are obligated regardless of what happens to your phone. A mobile phone contract is not a loan; the phone is not collateral. You can't choose to give back your phone in lieu of an early termination fee.

Well of course! That's different.

/petulantchild