You're viewing an article in iPO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site: Class Action Lawsuit Targets T-Mobile, Cell Phone Locking

News

Class Action Lawsuit Targets T-Mobile, Cell Phone Locking

Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 1:10 PM - by

The California Supreme Court will allow a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile regarding early termination fees and the practice of locking mobile phones, according to ars technica on Sunday. The lawsuit, if successful, could have ramifications for AT&T, Apple and the iPhone.

The lawsuit was filed by Bruce Gatton and Christina Nguyen. T-Mobile has countered that the case was "not arbitrable" under the Unfair Competition Law and the state's Consumer Legal Remedies Act. T-Mobile lost their argument.

Now the case will go to trial, and, if the plaintiffs win, the result could have repercussions both outside California and for companies that engage in the same practices, namely AT&T and Apple.

9 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

+ show options

Your current settings, click to change: Sort Oldest First, Show Guest Posts, Hide Community Stats

geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 2:42 pm

This could be great. Suppose T-Mobile loses and as a result cell phone locking werefound to be illegal. Then the iPhone (that has now proven itself to be a good unit that people want) could be sold to anyone, not just AT&T customers. All of the other providors would start falling all over themselves to support the iPhone. IMO I think whatever Apple would lose in not having the cut of the service contract it would make up with increased unit sales.

Quote this post ↓

gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:20 pm

geoduck wrote:
This could be great. Suppose T-Mobile loses and as a result cell phone locking werefound to be illegal. Then the iPhone (that has now proven itself to be a good unit that people want) could be sold to anyone, not just AT&T customers. All of the other providors would start falling all over themselves to support the iPhone. IMO I think whatever Apple would lose in not having the cut of the service contract it would make up with increased unit sales.

Well, not anyone. The current iPhone in the US will work only on ATT & T-Mobile, plus some small regional carriers. It cannot work on Sprint nor Verizon, the other two large nationwide carriers in the US.

Quote this post ↓

geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 6:16 pm

Interesting. Still, adding T-Mobile to the group of potential iPhone users is a big boost.

Quote this post ↓

Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:28 pm

If the California SC can invalidate this for the entire US of A, somebody needs to invalidate the state of California. It should not be able to dictate national commerce policy. Period. EVAR!!!!!! The fascination that these people seem to have with cell phone locking is unnatural at best, scary at the worst. Wake up, get a life, go to the beach and get a tan. You're scaring the rest of us for your obsessive behavior.

Quote this post ↓

Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:52 pm

As a proud resident (and 5th generation native) of the State of California, I hereby request neighboring states to invade us if and send our elected and appointed government officials to The Hague if we do that. Especially that asshat governor of ours.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:19 pm

Verizon does the same thing. They lock out everything you can do with the phone (Razor by Motorola). I have the Motorola software to create ring tones and such but, Verizon has locked out this feature. Razor phones through AT&T are not locked.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:34 pm

I agree with a lot of these comments. Just think of all of the phones that would be available, and having termination fees that would be considerably less, if even existent.

The iPhone could be used anywhere, the Sidekick also -- pretty much doing away with the " Exclusively From " phrase from the wireless industry, which I think is the way it should be.

Quote this post ↓

gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:58 pm

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with a lot of these comments. Just think of all of the phones that would be available, and having termination fees that would be considerably less, if even existent.

The phones would be much more expensive. A "free" phone would probably cost $100-150, music phones $150-200. The iPhone would probably have to be at least $100 more without the guaranteed revenue stream from the carrier. (Check the price differential on a locked and unlocked Treo, for example.) The carriers might well raise their data package rates, as well, without having locked-in contracts.

Quote:
The iPhone could be used anywhere, the Sidekick also -- pretty much doing away with the " Exclusively From " phrase from the wireless industry, which I think is the way it should be.

Nope. The iPhone only works on GSM networks. In the US, that means ATT or T-Mobile and some small regional carriers. The iPhone cannot work on Sprint or Verizon, which use CDMA. Apple chose GSM very probably because it's used widely in Europe and Asia.

Quote this post ↓

gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:02 pm

gslusher wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I agree with a lot of these comments. Just think of all of the phones that would be available, and having termination fees that would be considerably less, if even existent.

The phones would be more expensive. A "free" phone could easily cost $100-150, music phones $150-200. The iPhone would probably have to be at least $100 more without the guaranteed revenue stream from the carrier. (Check the price differential on a Treo with and without a contract, for example. The Sprint Treo 755p is $399 with a 2-year contract, $579 without the contract. The plan is $70/month, more than the iPhone plan with ATT.) The carriers might well raise their data package rates, as well, without having the guarantee revenue from contracts.

Quote:
The iPhone could be used anywhere, the Sidekick also -- pretty much doing away with the " Exclusively From " phrase from the wireless industry, which I think is the way it should be.

Nope. The iPhone only works on GSM networks. In the US, that means ATT or T-Mobile and some small regional carriers. The iPhone cannot work on Sprint or Verizon, which use CDMA. Apple chose GSM very probably because it's used widely in Europe and Asia.

Quote this post ↓

Post Your Comments

  Remember Me

Not a member? Register now. You can post comments without logging in, but they'll show up as a "guest" post.


Please enter the word exactly as you see it in the image above. Registered users aren't prompted for this. Having trouble reading the image get a new one.