Verizon gets FCC permission to end 60-day phone unlocking rule

Verizon tin support phones locked to its web for longer aft the Federal Communications Commission agreed to waive the carrier’s 60-day unlocking requirement, arsenic reported by Ars Technica.

Following this decision, Verizon must travel a looser group of guidelines group by the CTIA wireless waste and acquisition group, which says carriers should only unlock a customer’s postpaid telephone aft their statement is up, erstwhile they decorativeness paying disconnected the device, aliases pursuing the costs of an early termination fee. Meanwhile, the CTIA’s codification says carriers should unlock prepaid phones “no later than 1 twelvemonth aft first activation.”

The alteration comes after Verizon asked the FCC to waive the 60-day unlocking request past year, arguing that it “benefits bad actors and fraudsters.” The FCC began requiring Verizon to unlock phones faster arsenic a information of its acquisition of 700Mhz spectrum licenses successful 2008. It later granted Verizon support to wait 60 days until unlocking customers’ phones, a argumentation the bearer extended to Tracphone following its acquisition.

“Today, criminal networks are specifically targeting Verizon handsets owed to the company’s unsocial unlocking policies,” the FCC’s filing says. “In total, the Commission’s existent rules costs Verizon hundreds of millions of dollars each twelvemonth successful deadweight nonaccomplishment — money which could person been invested successful web upgrades aliases user friends deals.”

Now that the FCC has lifted the unlocking requirement, you mightiness person to hold longer to move to different bearer aft activating a telephone pinch Verizon. The FCC’s filing says the changes will spell into effect astatine Verizon 1 time aft the merchandise of its order, adding that it will stay successful effect until the FCC “decides connected an due industry-wide attack for the unlocking of handsets.”