20200201 - The Crusade Against Locked VOIP Devices

Wherein I complain about ATAs and VOIP phones that are locked to a specific telephony provider.

I don't agree with 'Loss Leadership'

The business practice of selling a product below your cost to create incentive for a more profitable service or consumable has become obsolete. A lot of consumer electronics are simply low end computers with specialty software installed. If your product is a super cheap computer (in the guise of a smartphone, game console, or similar 'appliance') that has been crippled to run your software on your service, then someone is going to decide to un-cripple it and turn it back into a computer.

This is a pernicious problem with consumer rights, and by proxy, property rights. Once you sell something to someone, it belongs to them, and they can do with it what they like, including modifying it or selling it. Commercial software contains all kinds of idiotic "licensing" and other things to dictate what you aren't supposed to do with it, but a piece of hardware is much harder to govern that way.

This is why selling hardware at a loss in this modern age is foolish. Even if the law is on your side, and you have a legal basis to tell people what to do with your hardware, because you are losing money on it, it's really hard to enforce any of it.

Locked Hardware is basically Pollution

One of the things that I love destroying is the software lock on a piece of hardware. Whether that is unlocking a mobile phone intended for a specific carrier, or disabling some sort of 'phone home' nonsense on a network appliance, nothing says "Don't Tread On Me" like foiling someone's brilliant mechanism for telling me what to do with something that I bought.

What exactly is the alternative? If you bought a gadget for a given network or other service, and you don't need or want to use that service any more, what are you supposed to do with the gadget? Throw it away? Hasn't the planet suffered enough?

The entire point of VOIP technology is to do away with costly and wasteful voice networks who do stupid things like locking phones to a given carrier. So when a VOIP vendor sells a VOIP device that has been locked to its network, I kind of feel like it's my duty to unlock it. You know, for the environment.

It didn't work for mobiles so...

Eco-politics aside, locked hardware can adversely affect poor people. I haven't needed to unlock a mobile in a few years. I bought a locked AT&T flip phone and unlocked it to use with t-Mo. My family has been using VZW for years and I have had several smartphones that I haven't bothered unlocking. I am fortunate to be your typical middle-class knowledge worker.

If I was not so fortunate, a smartphone may be my only means to connect to the Internet. It may also be gift or a hand-me-down from someone who doesn't understand what carrier I use. I have met people that use two phones, an older, no-frills phone that they use as a WiFi hotspot to connect the phone that they use for to communicate. Because they can afford the bill on the old phone, but want to use the newer one.

For a few years, unlocking a mobile was legal under the DMCA. Now it's not, but it's not hard to find the tools, or to just buy an unlocked phone. In the VOIP space, I don't think device unlocking is common enough to be an issue. To be honest, I am not certain about the legality of unlocking an ATA or phone that is locked to VOIP provider, so proceed at your own risk.

My first VOIP device was from a cheap competitor to Vonage. I can't remember the name anymore, but as I learned more about the technology, I found that I could set up my own ATA for far less. I spend a few years tinkering off and on with the old ATA, and finally tossed it. I've felt dirty about it ever since.

In the years since, I have owned a few ATA's, some unlocked, and some locked-ish ATA's from providers like ObiTalk. I have used them for various projects for family, charity work, and even for a couple of employers.