T-Mobile: Unlocking Phones After 60 Days a ‘Major Question’

WASHINGTON, September 17, 2024 – The Supreme Court’s major questions rule has been making life a bit more difficult at the Federal Communications Commission. T-Mobile met with agency staff last week to reiterate its position that the rule would block a planned phone unlocking mandate.

“[T]he Commission fails to point to specific statutory authorization for an unlocking mandate, and would have profound economic consequences, thus raising a ‘major question’ that would require clear statutory authority from Congress,” T-Mobile vice president of government affairs Clint Odom told Democratic commissioner Geoffrey Starks last week.

The high court laid out a more expansive version of the rule in a 2022 decision, which requires explicit Congressional permission for agencies to decide issues of “vast political and economic significance,” – it’s one of a string of rulings that chip away at federal agency power. The decisions haven’t stopped the FCC’s Democratic majority from enacting rules over the objections of the telecom industry, but ISPs have had some success taking up the new avenues of attack in court.