Unlocking Your Phone in the U.S. Is About to Get a Lot Easier

It will soon be easier, and hopefully less confusing, for consumers in the United States to unlock their cellphones. The CTIA, the industry trade group that represents the wireless industry, submitted a letter to the FCC on Thursday agreeing to adopt a "voluntary set of six principles for consumers' mobile phones and tablets."

The ability to "unlock" your cellphone or tablet — that is, provision the phone to run on a different carrier network — gained visibility in early 2013, after a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) exemption that made the practice legal in the U.Sexpired.