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# T-Mobile: FCC's Unlocking Mandate Will Cost Consumers
- URL: https://broadbandbreakfast.com/t-mobile-fccs-unlocking-mandate-will-cost-consumers/
- Published: 2024-10-18T16:42:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-03-11T06:02:31.000Z
- Description: Wireless carrier warns smartphone subsidies could shrink up to 70 percent.
- Author: Ari Bertenthal
- Tags: T-Mobile, Unlocking, #with-siderail, FCC, Verizon, Jessica Rosenworcel

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2024 – The Un-Carrier has a big problem with unlocking. 

Unlike Verizon, T-Mobile is fighting FCC Chairwoman **Jessica Rosenworcel's** plan to require smartphone unlocking after 60 days from network activation unless the device was acquired through fraud. 

"If the FCC mandates a uniform unlocking policy, it is consumers – not providers – who stand to lose the most," T-Mobile officials said in an [Oct. 17 virtual meeting](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1017178290200/1?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) with many senior FCC staff. 

Mobile phone customers, the company added, "risk losing access to the benefits of [free or heavily subsidized handsets](https://broadbandbreakfast.com/t-mobile-unlocking-phones-after-60-days-a-major-question/) because the proposal would force providers to reduce the line-up of their most compelling handset offers." 

Doing the math, T-Mobile, which is led by CEO **Mike Sievert,** said its prepaid customers would see subsidies "reduced by 40% to 70% for both its lower and higher-end devices, such as the Moto G, Samsung A15, and iPhone 12." 

Rosenworcel's plan would likely mean limiting “handset offers to lower cost and often lesser performing handsets," said T-Mobile, which in ads and promotional material refers to itself as the “Un-carrier.”

Under Rosenworcel's plan, consumers could take their phones to any wireless carrier and sign up for a new service plan, even money were still owned on their devices.

Rosenworcel’s plan, proposed on July 18, was intended to increase consumer and competition among wireless service providers.

“Some \[providers\] have recently increased the time their customers must wait until they can unlock their device by as much as 100 percent,” said Rosenworcel in [a July statement](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-77A2.pdf?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com). “We can put in place a nationwide standard because it is in the best interest of consumers and competition.”