Obama Is About to Give You the Right to Unlock Your Phone
Mother Jones
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Ever wondered why you can’t transfer your old phone to a new carrier? The practice, known as cellphone unlocking, is illegal. It probably won’t surprise you that in the ’90s, wireless carriers—who, for obvious reasons, wanted everyone to buy new phones and plans—lobbied for a ban.
As I wrote last year, this ban isn’t just annoying and expensive for consumers, it’s also wasteful. We only keep our phones for an average of 18 months , and when we get a new one, the old one seldom makes it to a recycling facility. Many languish in desk drawers; some end up in the garbage. That means a lot of electronic waste in landfills, not to mention the environmentally hazardous materials such as rare earths required to make all those new phones.
So it’s great news that today the House unanimously passed a law that would finally make phone unlocking legal. The Senate approved the measure last week. Now President Obama just needs to sign off, which he has pledged to do.
After that, if you unearth that old phone from the desk drawer, someone might actually be able to use it.
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