So you spend a few hundred bucks on your new toy. You realize that this cell-phone is partially paid for by your crappy carrier be it AT&T / Verizon or someone else. You accept the fact that they paid part of the bill so you promise to be them faithful for 2 years with your device. No problems so far (you can choose to pay full price and not deal with this "hassle").
Now things gets interesting. The FCC SHOULD have made it mandatory for the carriers to provide free unlocking services once your contract expired. The subsidy has been paid back, the contract has been fulfilled you did pay for the phone. It is hardware.
Instead a law was put into effect on Saturday Jan 26th that explicitely makes it ILLEGAL to unlock the cell-phone.
This only takes a few minutes so I encourage you to sign the white house petition recalling this law. I know there are more important things out there in this world but this is free and takes very little time. You should also be signed up to sign these petitions regardless - some may be more worthwhile than others.....
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petiti ... n/4Yy3p2qW