The Internet itself has been a wonderland for creators to design, build, and launch their ideas to the world, and that’s how innovations like Amazon, Twitter, and Google were created. When handymen are empowered, economic growth occurs. From Edison’s light bulb and Westinghouse’s alternating current to modern 3D printing and UAV drones, tinkerers are inventing the future.
Phone unlocking should be an important part of this innovation story.
Prohibiting unlocking affects more than you think
If a user has purchased a phone and owns that device, then they should be allowed to do whatever they want with the device, and installing their own software is a crucial ownership right. To continue to prohibit unlocking is to deny a fundamental principle of property rights: the ability to modify your own property.
Restricting users’ ability to modify their property is an invasion of personal freedom. And criminalizing innocuous behavior to discourage new market entrants is a form of federal intervention in the market.
#### Derek Khanna
##### About
[Derek Khanna](https://www.facebook.com/DerekKhanna) has been a staff member for the House, Senate, and two presidential campaigns. While on the staff of the Republican Study Committee, he wrote the infamous Copyright Reform Report advocating free-market copyright reforms to foster innovation. Khanna is currently a member of Yale Law’s Information Society Project and serves as an advisor and board member for several startups. He can be found on Twitter @DerekKhanna.
Deployed service members
When our service members are deployed overseas, whether to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or to permanent bases in South Korea and Germany, they often have to unlock their phones so they can continue using them in theater and on base. I have received messages from numerous service members who were very concerned about breaking the law and committing a serious crime in order to use their phone in Afghanistan, where their local carrier had no service at all. Our nation’s military service members deserve better than to worry about losing their security clearances or being fired for using technology that should never have been banned in the first place.
Federal overcriminalization
American citizens should not be under the threat of going to prison, being convicted as criminals, and losing their freedom and right to vote for* behaviors that do not constitute social harm*. The danger of federal overcriminalization is not just the real threat of average Americans being arrested for these crimes, but rather the impact on economic opportunities for businesses and the ability of prosecutors to abuse the system and cherry-pick individuals. for processing. When average, harmless behavior is illegal, the threat is not only that people will be arrested by an overzealous prosecutor, but also that companies can use the threat of criminal action to attack and intimidate competitors.
Consumers pay more to send a terrestrial text than NASA pays for messages from mars.### International travelers and calling rates
When you get off the plane at many international airports, there are numerous kiosks and companies offering SIM cards for telephone use. Under the current legal structure, this is illegal if doing so requires the consumer to patch their device (or other forms of unlocking). A small change in the law would put downward pressure through competition on international calling rates, thus using the free market to reduce the exorbitant costs of international roaming. If wireless providers have to compete for international calling rates with these SIM card providers, that means cheaper prices for everyone.
Increased competition from wireless operators
The wireless market is dominated by several major telephone companies that have almost exclusive access to the latest phones and the latest telephone coverage technology. Costs for data usage, text messaging, and phone calls remain high for American consumers. Abuses include operators’ voice messages being deliberately long to increase the number of call minutes. Competition through the free market can be a critical part of controlling these exorbitant pricing models. Texting in particular is a revenue stream where all texting plans essentially make a 99.9% profit (texting costs operators almost nothing). In fact:* consumers pay more, for the same size of data, to send a text on Earth than NASA pays for messages from Mars*.
Resale markets
The mobile market is gradually adapting to become (for some) a commodity-based market. The latest iPhone, Blackberry or Android will be functionally equivalent to a two-year-old device. Unlocking legalization would allow the average American to trade in their old phones for newer phones, giving them more flexibility and choice for the consumer. Additionally, unlocking will ultimately reduce the number of phones ending up in landfills by finding new uses for older devices.
Secondary and backup phones
Many parents want their children to be able to contact them in case of an emergency, during a field trip, once they start driving, or after extracurricular activities, but they may not want their young children to have their own phones at such times. an early age. If a free market for mobile devices were allowed, these parents could give their old phones to their children just for these purposes, while restricting calling, texting, email, and web privileges as they see fit. The average person may not buy an extra phone for these purposes, but they are much more likely to buy a SIM card that is extremely cheap and use an old phone for this purpose.
New business models
In areas that are not subject to federal intervention through criminalization, we are seeing the market offer alternatives to reduce costs. This year, for the first time, telephone use of alternative messaging services has surpassed the use of SMS text messages from telephone operators.
Republic Wireless offers a competitive new product for consumers: unlimited voice, text, internet and data for just $19 per month. The secret? Their service offloads calls, texts and data to the wireless network when the phone is in a wireless area and uses Sprint when it is not in a wireless area. This model undercuts the market by 60% to 80% and has the added benefit of being part of the solution to the spectrum shortage (offloading will be critical to weathering the continued explosion in consumer data usage). The problem? Republic Wireless is a newer player in the market and does not have the necessary relationships with phone providers to offer the latest and greatest device technologies with its service. In an unlock world, a consumer could bring their old iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Blackberry Q10, Nokia 420 to Republic Wireless and have a $19 per month all-you-can-use plan.
