Verizon Continues To Make Phone Unlocking Annoying (With The Trump FCC’s Help)
from the competition-is-a-dirty-word dept
Earlier this year we noted how the Trump FCC, at the direct request of wireless phone giants, destroyed popular phone unlocking rules making it easier and cheaper to switch wireless carriers. The rules, applied via spectrum acquisition and merger conditions after years of activism, required that Verizon unlock your phone within 60 days after purchase so you could easily switch to competitors.
Verizon, as we’ve long established, hates competition, and early last year immediately got to work lobbying the Trump administration to destroy the rules (falsely) claiming, without evidence, that the modest phone unlocking requirements were a boon to criminals and scammers.
The pay-to-play Trump administration quickly agreed, killed the rules, and shortly thereafter Verizon started telling wireless customers on its many prepaid phone brands (including Tracfone) they had to wait a year before switching phones after purchasing one from Verizon:
“While a locked phone is tied to the network of one carrier, an unlocked phone can be switched to another carrier if the device is compatible with the other carrier’s network. But the new TracFone unlocking policy is stringent, requiring customers to pay for a full year of service before they can get a phone unlocked.”
Recently, Verizon implemented a whole bunch of additional restrictions made possible by the Trump administration. More specifically, they imposed a new 35-day waiting period when a customer pays off their device installment plan online or in the Verizon app and wants to take their device to another carrier:
“Payments made over the phone also trigger a 35-day waiting period, as do payments made at Verizon Authorized Retailers. Getting an immediate unlock apparently requires paying off the device plan at a Verizon corporate store.”
So first, they implemented the most draconian restrictions on its prepaid customers, who tend to be lower income and the most impacted from high prices. Now they’re starting to push restrictions onto their more lucrative postpaid (month to month) customers.
Verizon insists (falsely) that these restrictions are necessary to “prevent fraud,” but the real goal is to increase friction when it comes to switching to a competitor. They don’t want the press to outright acknowledge this is anti-competitive in coverage, so they’re engaging in the slow-boiling frog approach that just steadily makes porting your phone out steadily more difficult and annoying.
These unlocking conditions were broadly popular, served the public interest, and took decades of activism and reform advocacy to pass. They ensured that it was easier for consumers to switch between our ever-consolidating, anti-competitive wireless phone giants (consolidation directly made possible by the Trump administration’s past rubber stamping of shitty telecom mergers).
Verizon lobbied the FCC by repeatedly lying, without evidence, that these conditions resulted in a wave of black market phone thefts. FCC boss Brendan Carr, ever the industry lackey, parroted the lies in his subsequent industry-friendly rulings. You know, to make America great again via “populism” or whatever.
Verizon (and Carr) know that there’s a lot going on and the mundanity of a subject like phone unlocking won’t get much attention in the press. Given that the Trump administration has largely lobotomized regulatory independence (at Verizon’s request), there’s very little chance Verizon will see any future accountability, but it’s positively adorable that they’re proceeding cautiously just in case.
Filed Under: brendan carr, competition, fcc, smartphones, spectrum, telecom, unlocking, wireless
Companies: verizon
Comments on “Verizon Continues To Make Phone Unlocking Annoying (With The Trump FCC’s Help)”
As I recall, the Canadian telcos said the same, and the result was that the government let them lock phones that were sitting in warehouses, trucks, and stores. They just have to unlock each phone when it’s sold to a customer. (Unfortunately, this is only carrier locking; bootloader locking is not banned.)
I’m gonna be the crusty old man here. I long ago abandoned the mobile phone company shenanigans and have been an unlocked phone user since the 90’s. This means I have been an ardent “No Verizon” person, for three primary reasons:
1) CDMA
2) Contracts
3) Subsidized and locked hardware
Apparently, two of those three are still relevant and I don’t know how anyone still falls for them.
(Yes, I know there are no better choices, but I still choose to limit my exposure to the shitiness.)
Another topic that the telcos like to ignore is that they want customer loyalty. Instead, they promote changing. There are lots of incentives to switch providers. The telcos lure new customers with free/cheap phones, great introductory phones, accessories, and etc. Then if they get their way, a long contract that locks in that new customer to a LONG contract with a very expensive price that they get to change the terms on whenever they want, but customers are locked into. Also included with those long term “locked in” prices are fees that they get to increase but are not part of the advertised price and can keep going up.
Only the telco can change the contract, increase fees, remove features and so on and customers are still stuck.
The telcos want the locking of phones as another means of “retaining” customers but most of them also offer some type of incentive that includes a new “reduced price” phone so lure new customers from other telcos.
However; there is NEVER a retention feature, only the phone/contract lock-in to try to force customers to stay. It’s an attempt to eliminate any chance of competition by removing any chance changing to another provider.
And of course, if a customer does decide to stay when the contract ends, there is never a price increase from all those synergies and economies of scale talked about in the merger mania. Only increased costs of doing business.
But they are their own worst enemies. Customers never receive the benefit of any merger synergies, they are already locked into an ever increasing “contract” price (because of increasing fees).
Most can’t wait for a contract to end so they can go somewhere else for a better deal via new customer incentives. There are zero incentives to stay with a provider. AND, if you complain about it to customer service, they read some pre-planned script about there’s nothing they can do about it.