Trump FCC Helps Verizon Make It Harder For You To Switch Wireless Carriers

Last May we noted how Verizon was lobbying the Trump administration to eliminate rules making it easier to switch mobile providers (and bring your phone with you). And as usual with the pay-to-play Trump administration, the Trump FCC is tripping over itself to give Verizon what it wants.

The Trump FCC says it is eliminating rules requiring that Verizon unlock handsets 60 days after they are activated on its network. As part of its lobbying efforts, Verizon has falsely claimed that adhering to the 60 day unlocking requirements is somehow a huge boon to criminals, something Brendan Carr’s industry-coddling FCC parrots in the agency’s announcement:

“[The rule] required one wireless carrier to unlock their handsets well earlier than standard industry practice, thus creating an incentive for bad actors to steal those handsets for purposes of carrying out fraud and other illegal acts.”

This is, you’ll be surprised to learn, a lie.

Older folks might remember that Verizon used to be even more obnoxious on this subject of consumer freedom. 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 horrendous when it came to unlocking phones, switching carriers, and using the device of your choice on the Verizon network.

Two things changed 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.

Here you have both a major wireless company and U.S. regulators lying to your face, insisting that killing these basic protections help create a “uniform industry standard that can help stem the flow of handsets into the black market.”

Verizon used to sell phones that were already fully unlocked, but received a waiver from the first Trump administration in 2019 after the company again lied about how making it easier to switch carriers would make it harder to “prevent fraud.”

Ultimately, what Verizon (and its friends at the corrupt FCC) want is zero government oversight whatsoever, taking us back to the days when Verizon could impose any number of obnoxious restrictions designed to harm (device and app) competition and the public interest. They want to bring back the era where you were locked to one provider via locked phones and long-term contracts.

Given enough time and rope, they’ll inevitably push to be able to control what apps and services you can use (read: net neutrality). This desire to exploit telecom monopoly power operates a bit like the physics of running water; it only really goes one direction without functional government oversight.

Because U.S. journalism is a clown show, many outlets are taking Verizon and the FCC’s unsubstantiated claims of increased fraud and parroting them in headlines, like Reuters does here:

Ultimately, the Trump administration (and its Supreme and Circuit Courts) has been steadily moving toward making it impossible to hold unpopular giants like Verizon accountable for anything by dismantling whatever is left of U.S. regulatory oversight. And rubbing stamping more mergers that increase consolidation in the uncompetitive telecom sector.

In exchange, Verizon obediently acquiesces to administration demands that executives remain quiet while the administration destroys democracy and civil rights, and occasionally makes an effort to try to be more sexist and racist. So far that corrupt symbiosis is working out well for both parties.