Cell Phone Unlocking - Is It Legal Or Illegal?

By Author: Linus Xavier
Total Articles: 81
Comment this article

People just mix up the word unlocking with the word unblocking. Unlocking cell phones means making your phone compatible with some other service provider, where as unblocking is an illegal activity, which is to make your phone work after it is blocked by the service provider. It is possible to unlock your phones with the help of the SIM unlocking attachment. It is a small piece of equipment, like a normal SIM card which helps you to unlock your SIM and make your phone work with some other network.

The U.S Copyright Office ensures the right to legally unlock cell phones, i.e. legally allow the user to change or switch to another service. But if the user has made a pact with the service provider, then it becomes illegal to unlock the phone. Unlocked cell phones have a higher market value price than locked phones. Consumers prefer buying unlocked phones, free from the procedures and the supplementary expenses of unlocking. But the illegality arises when an inexpensive locked phone is bought, unlocked and then sold at a higher rate.

Though all countries do not permit the system of unlocking cell phones, countries ...
... like U.S and Netherlands allow the scheme of phone unlocking. Although it is legal to unlock phones, a lot of companies restrict themselves from unlocking. Some cases of arrest in U.K have been reported for phone unlocking, which explains the illegality of phone unlocking in some countries.

The DMCA in the USA has made jail breaking of the iPhone or any other phone legal. Technically it may sound illegal. An estimated million users in U.S alone have jail broken their phones, which is now quite legal and has almost become the norm. Apple has struggled very hard to restrict jail breaking incidents, as it frowns upon anyone that tampers with the iPhone. The warranty on an iPhone becomes void if it is tampered with in anyway, and this is just one of the ways that Apple is trying to prevent cases of jail breaking. Unlocking therefore has different legislation in different countries. So, one should always be cautious regarding the legality of unlocking in a particular country. It is necessary to know the laws or else you might just find yourself behind bars, whereas you might find yourself enjoying a healthy perk for doing the same in a country where unlocking is legal.

Most of the service providers do hesitate in offering phone unlocking, due to the competition among them. So it is always wise to purchase a phone and service which offer unlocking. Locked phones can be legally unlocked by downloading certain software applications or simply by just entering a special code, offered by the service provider.

Also, there are websites on the internet that unlock your phone for a small fee. In any case, cell phone unlocking is set to become more popular in the future, as more and more people try to change their service provider in hopes of a getting the most out of what they pay.