WASHINGTON Thu Nov 14, 2013 6:40pm EST
A man talks on his mobile phone as he waits at a crosswalk at Lindbergh Field Airport in San Diego, California, November 6, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Mike BlakeWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top telecommunications regulator on Thursday demanded that wireless providers voluntarily agree on the rights of consumers to unlock mobile devices once contracts end, or the Federal Communications Commission will make it a rule.
At issue is whether cellphone buyers, who often get new devices at a heavily subsidized price in return for committing to long-term contracts, should be able to take their gadgets with them when they change carriers.
The FCC and the wireless trade group CTIA have been working for eight months on developing a policy for the industry's Consumer Code that would address the rights of phone owners to unlock their devices.
In a letter to CTIA President Steve Largent on Thursday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler urged the industry to adopt the new unlocking policy within weeks, before the holiday shopping season.
"Enough time has passed, and it is now time for the industry to act voluntarily or for the FCC to regulate," Wheeler said in the letter posted online.
According to Wheeler's letter, the carriers agree that consumers should be able to unlock their devices once their contracts are fulfilled but have not agreed to a policy of notifying customers when their device is eligible for unlocking or automatically unlocking the device when it becomes eligible.
"Absent the consumer's right to be informed about eligibility, any voluntary program would be a hollow shell," Wheeler said in his letter.
The ban on unlocking originates in the U.S. copyright law overseen by the Library of Congress. The White House in March responded to an online petition protesting the law and sided with the thousands who signed it.
Lawmakers have introduced bills for a legislative fix but consumer advocates have urged the FCC, the agency that regulates the wireless industry, to get involved.
In a statement on Thursday, CTIA's vice president for regulatory affairs, Scott Bergmann, said the trade association would continue discussions with Wheeler and that consumers now can take advantage of a "wide variety" of unlocked devices and "liberal" unlocking policies.
He added that not all devices can be switched from one provider to another because of their technological or engineering specifications.
Opponents of unlocking have argued that the phones should be "locked," or prevented from moving freely across networks, because of the subsidies that carriers such as AT&T Inc, Verizon Wireless and Sprint provide to consumers when they buy the phones.
Wheeler's push on Thursday was welcomed by smaller rural and regional carriers who hope it will help them access more advanced devices now not manufactured with their networks in mind; and by consumer interest groups like Public Knowledge, which has accused the wireless industry of foot-dragging.
"If we all agree that people should be able to use their devices on any network they choose, it's time for that to be a reality," said Sherwin Siy, vice president of legal affairs for Washington-based Public Knowledge.
CTIA, where Wheeler himself was once president, has advocated for the passage of a bill in Congress that would narrowly repeal the Library of Congress decision that sparked this year's unlocking policy debate.
The Library of Congress is responsible for setting rules related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Last year it stopped exempting cellphone unlocking from the reach of the law, meaning customers now have to request their wireless company's permission to legally unlock a phone even after fulfilling the contract with that company.
In response to the online petition that ensued, the White House said it would support a narrow legislative fix.
(Reporting by Alina Selyukh; editing by Andrew Hay)
SA handsome, grate-covered box that makes the similarly priced plastic bluetooth speakers out there seem like cheap garbage. Three button volume and playback controls on the top. The overall footprint on is about the size of a frosty beer mug or a full bag of goldfish.The Play:1 is designed so that it can work as a standalone wireless speaker by connecting it the included ethernet cable directly into your router. But in all likelihood, you're going to want to set this system up with a Sonos Bridge that connects to your router so that you can go put the Play wherever you want within Wi-Fi range. This'll also allow you to set up multiple Sonos systems throughout your house.Play:1 is designed as a standalone, and on its own, a single unit is powerful enough to fill up a decent-sized living room. If, however, you're going to use this as your main music system in a room larger than a closet, you're going to want to pair it with another for a stereo setup.That said, the sound quality of a single unit is really impressive, even without left-right panning. The sound makes anything else at a $200 price-point sound pretty pathetic. Technically, the larger driver inside Play:1 is only a mid-range, but I was quite impressed at how much low-end something this size can throw out. Overall, the sound is spectacular. Easy-to-use and beautiful-sounding like a Sonos, priced like a Bluetooth speaker.That Sonos still doesn't have an entirely battery-powered unit you can pick up and easily transport from place to place. Play:1 makes it pretty clear that Sonos doesn't want to put batteries in its systems. There's a practical reason for this in that powering the Play:1's thundering bass would be tough in a standalone system with any kind of battery-life, but still, boo.Even though Play:1 is aggressively priced to move units, Sonos is a system best enjoyed with multiple rooms, throughout a grown-up house. It's not that you won't enjoy a single unit, it's that the setup time and marginally higher expense starts to make more sense if you're trying to outfit a house with Sonos instead of just your tiny closet of a bedroom. (Yes, I live in a tiny closet of a bedroom.)The traditional "mute" button on all Sonos products has been replaced by a "play/pause" button that allows you to simply walk up to Play:1 and start on whatever you were last listening to. This is an important change because it reflects something the industry is learning about how people want to listen to music. Even if Sonos' desktop and mobile controller apps make for relatively seamless wireless listening, a lot of people miss the boom box experience of yore where all you had to do is walk up and switch it on. Bose's new Sonos-like system offers exactly this kind of push-button functionality, and you should expect other competitors to introduce the feature as well.Most likely, yes. Honestly, I think the system really isn't totally complete on its own in a living room without a stereo pair, which brings up the regular price of a new system to $450, which is quite pricey. That said, I am also a humongous nerd, and I could see putting one single unit in your kitchen or bathroom so that you can listen to music. [Amazon and Sonos]
