Unlocking a cell phone is something of a Houdini-esque exercise. Sure, it's possible to tweak a handset so it works on a network other than the one for which it was designed. But it requires following a series of steps that the average consumer may find complicated -- and which could render the device useless.
Little wonder fewer than 5 percent of U.S. cell-phone owners go to the trouble. But thanks to regulators and one of the country's fastest growing mobile-phone providers, it may soon get a lot easier to unlock a cell phone. The prospect of more consumers moving from one network to the next without a carrier's consent is only the latest in a series of trends loosening carriers' grip on a $140 billion market.
MetroPCS, which has 4.4 million subscribers and operates in markets including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Detroit, in late June became the first well-known U.S. carrier to publicly offer to unlock phones sold by a competing service provider. Under the offer's terms, MetroPCS will tinker with phones originally sold by Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, Alltel, or any other carrier whose network is based on CDMA [code division multiple access], the technology MetroPCS uses. MetroPCS will unlock the phone and provide a month's worth of calling -- all for $30.
The service alone could help MetroPCS attract 200,000 to 500,000 subscribers in the next 12 to 14 months, says Vikrant Gandhi, an analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan. "Early indications show a tremendous amount of interest," says MetroPCS Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter. An increase at the lower end of Gandhi's estimate would translate to almost a quarter's worth of growth for a company that added 1 million customers in 2007 -- enviable, considering total U.S. subscribers increased by only 9.6 percent last year.
Following Suit
Other carriers may follow...

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