The Cell Phone Freedom Act was introduced on June 17, 2010 in the Canadian House of Commons as Bill C-560[1] by Bruce Hyer, the New Democratic Party Small Business Critic and Member of Parliament for Thunder Bay—Superior North.
Bill C-560 was expired due to the government's defeat in March 2011. Hyer reintroduced the Cell Phone Freedom Act under the new session of parliament, as Bill C-343[2].
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The Bill mandates that:
Under the proposed legislation, wireless service providers may still employ such locks on customer phones while under contract, so it is unlikely to impact the common practice of offering subsidized phones on contracts.
In introducing the Cell Phone Freedom Act in Parliament, Hyer commented that the effective lack of competition in the Canadian wireless market, combined with lack of regulation, has led to a market situation where mobile phone providers could routinely place restrictions on consumer choice. Unlike most other developed countries, there are no regulations regarding placing a SIM lock on mobile phones so that consumers are limited to using their handsets only on a single provider's network, and the practice has become standard in Canada. Hyer contends that these locks limit consumer choice and limit competition, resulting in poorer service and higher prices for Canadians. While it is possible for advanced users to unlock many GSM and High Speed Packet Access (or HSPA, the mobile telephony protocol Canadian CDMA carriers are migrating to) phones, the process can result in damaged handsets if executed improperly. Mobile service providers generally only need to provide a Subsidy Password that can be typed into a consumer's handset in order to unlock a mobile phone.
On December 15, 2010, Rogers Communications announced they would start offering to unlock all customers handsets (including the iPhone) for a flat fee of $50, in response to public pressure on the issue. [3] The other two major national carriers, Bell and Telus (and its sub-brand Koodo Mobile), have followed suit (this does not include the Apple iPhone). Other new carriers such as Wind Mobile already sell unlocked devices (with no extra unlocking fee).[4]