Verizon Asks Trump Admin To Destroy All Popular Phone Unlocking Requirements
If you’ve been around a while you might recall that Verizon used to be utterly obnoxious when it came to absolutely everything about using your mobile phone. Once upon a time, the company banned you from even using third-party apps (including basics like GPS), forcing you to use extremely shitty Verizon apps. It also used to be absolutely horrendous when it came to unlocking phones, switching carriers, and using the device of your choice on the Verizon network.
Two things changed all that. One, back in 2008 when the company acquired spectrum that came with requirements that users be allowed to use the devices of their choice. And two, as part of merger conditions affixed to its 2021 acquisition of Tracfone. Thanks to those two events Verizon was dragged, kicking and screaming, into a new era of openness that was of huge benefit to the public.
Now, with the Trump administration openly destroying whatever’s left of U.S. federal corporate oversight and consumer protection standards, Verizon sees an opportunity. As Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica notes, Verizon’s attempting to get the Trump administration to kill all unlocking requirements, in a bid to drag everyone back to the dark ages of cellphone use.
Verizon being Verizon, they can’t help but lie about it in a petition to the Trump FCC, claiming that they simply must be allowed to unfairly lock down mobile devices, because doing anything else harms competition and helps criminals:
“The Unlocking Rule applies only to particular providers—mainly Verizon—and distorts the marketplace in a critical US industry,” the Verizon petition said. “The rule has resulted in unintended consequences that harm consumers, competition, and Verizon, while propping up international criminal organizations that profit from fraud, including device trafficking of subsidized devices from the United States. These bad actors target and harm American consumers and US carriers like Verizon for their own profit, by diverting unlocked trafficked devices to consumers in foreign countries.”
Verizon, which quickly folded to Trump administration demands that it wasn’t sexist or racist enough in exchange for Frontier merger approval, has a long history of being completely full of shit on issues relating to consumer rights. And they’re particularly full of shit here.
Historical requirements on this front make it easier for you to bring any device you’d like to the Verizon network (assuming it doesn’t harm network security). Without them, Verizon could revert to only letting you use phones Verizon chooses and sells, jacking up the price for devices. Taking it further, we could easily return to the era where Verizon only lets you use apps approved or sold by Verizon.
These openness requirements are somewhat scattershot across carriers, which is why the Biden FCC had been proposing a uniform rule that would have required that all wireless providers unlock devices within 60 days of purchase.
Not only is that effort dead now thanks to Trump’s election, but Verizon’s pushing to eliminate all such requirements, driving progress violently backward. Verizon’s hoping that such rollbacks can be part of FCC boss Brendan Carr’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” deregulatory bonanza, in which he’s destroying longstanding consumer protection standards under the pretense of government efficiency.
Verizon even name drops Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts in their petition, insisting that longstanding and popular consumer protection standards on wireless devices are “the perfect example of the type of rule that the Commission should eliminate as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s Deregulatory Initiative.”
Even if the rules aren’t destroyed by the Trump FCC, numerous recent Trump court rulings and executive orders make it all but impossible for regulators to enforce most consumer protection rules. But Verizon, ever a fan of crushing consumer protection standards and competition, wants to make doubly sure.