Mobile Devices are Increasingly Locked Down and Controlled by the Carriers
How Cell Phone “Customization” Undermines End-Users by Redefining Ownership
1968 was a landmark year for communication in the United States. The same year when HAL 9000, the psychotic computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, famously said “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” consumers were suddenly freed to connect any phone or devices to their telephone lines. In the seminal “Carterfone” Supreme Court case, the nation’s highest court ruled that a carrier did not have the right to restrict an end user’s ability to add devices to the network. This decision is what made everything from answering machines to the dial-up modem legal, the foundation for the modern Internet.
However, over forty years later mobile telephone networks are locked down like the wireline networks of the last century. More and more consumers are discovering that their cell phones come with software customization from their service provider that mandates what they can and cannot do with the device. Much as AT&T attempted to control the devices and applications allowed on their wireline network, mobile carriers are now doing exactly the same thing.
Because of the lack of adequate consumer protections, wireless providers have systematically undermined the freedoms we take for granted on wireline networks and are now engaged in practices whereby purchasing a wireless device does not translate to the ability to define for yourself how the device is used or what applications you run on the network. As we’ve pointed out in previous wireless Carterfone analyses; “In the wired world, their policies would, in some cases, be considered simply misguided, and in other cases be considered outrageous and perhaps illegal.”
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