On Saturday, Americans will have to get permission before trying to get their phones ?unlocked?.
In October 2012, a change to the US Digital Millineum Copyright Act (DMCA) allowed cell phone owners to temporarily unlock their cellphones without having to ask their network provider first.
What this meant for consumers was that they had a strict 90-day time limit to unlock their phones without having to ask. Prior to this, cell phone users would have to pay a fee to their service provider to get their cellphones unlocked for usage on other networks. If you unlock a cell phone without permission after Saturday you could be in violation of the DMCA.
Unlocking phones gives users the ability to freely skirt things such as roaming fees while traveling abroad or paying exorbitant fees for using other carrier services.
An online petition is trying to reach a goal of 100,000 signatures to make the Librarian of Congress ? who determines exemptions to the DMCA ? rescind this decision to end the time limit. The petition?s ultimate goal is to make unlocking permanently legal.
So far 5,272 people have signed the petition. The deadline for it is February 23, 2013.
A number of U.S. cell phone companies already provide unlocked handsets, but many are unable to be locked. There are two systems for locking phones onto a specific provider, according to HowStuffWorks: Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). If you have a CDMA phone then the unlocking process is done directly through the provider, but if you have a GSM phone then the unlocking process is done through switching SIM cards.
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