There are many smartphone owners on the various platforms that like
to jailbreak and unlock their handsets, which can be for various reasons
such as just moving carrier, but this practice was outlawed in the US
recently, but the phone unlocking ban is now under scrutiny by the FCC.
Towards the end of January it became
illegal to unlock your handsets in the US, unless you had the consent
from your carrier. The decision was made after it was ruled the software
running on our handsets and other hardware was the intellectual
property of the developer, so users don’t own this software so shouldn’t
be allowed to modify it according to the ruling.
This has obviously caused a lot of uproar as criminals are being made
out of law abiding citizens who just want to alter the handset they are
paying for, and now as TechCrunch are reporting the FCC are going to investigate the ban to see if its damaging to economic competitiveness.
There was a petition that recently reached enough signatures to get a
White House response on the issue, and the Federal Communications
Commission Chairman Julius Genachowskihas revealed the body is also
looking into the matter.
It is not known if the FCC has enough authority on the matter, but
the body is looking more into the situation, and many users have been
unhappy with the changes as it also limits their ability to use local
SIM cards when travelling and prevent occurring high roaming fees.
How do you feel about this law change and do you think the FCC will get anywhere?
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