About a year ago, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, Cellcom, Bluegrass Cellular, and US Cellular (collectively organized via the Cellular Telephone Industries Association, or CTIA) agreed to a series of provisions with the FCC to make it possible for consumers to unlock their phones.

The deadline for that agreement was yesterday, February 11th. Which means that, as of right now, you have the right to unlock your phone, provided you meet the basic criteria for unlocking.

You can read the FCC human-friendly version of the provisions here. Worth a few minutes of your time to do so. Know your rights.

And you can read the CTIA version of the guidelines here.

Good to have these links handy if you run into any resistance trying to unlock your phone.

[Via Ars Technica]