Handset locking lawsuit filed

Jun 08 2004 - 01:10 AM ET | In The News

A lawsuit for handset locking was filed against three major US wireless carriers. AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile USA and Cingular Wireless are being sued by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. The full complaint can be read here [PDF]. Here is a summary: bq. Consumers who wished to take advantage of the Federal Communications Commission's recent "number portability" rule by going to another new company and keeping the same phone number would also be able to keep their phones under this built-in technology.

However, the complaint alleges that the three companies have inserted software inside the phones they sell to prevent such interchangeability. Thus, a dissatisfied customer of one company must be willing to buy a new phone and throw away an otherwise perfectly good phone in order to change carriers.

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