I thought the FCC had a law passed a few years ago that required carriers to unlock phones after your contract expired and you requested the phone be unlocked.
AT&T told me when I requested my 'out of contract' iPhone be unlocked, they gave me all sorts of excuses;
1) It can't be done
2) Business account phones can't be unlocked (I own the business and phones)
3) it's illegal
After all the excuses, I asked the operator for his name and employee ID so I could reference that when I filed a complaint with the FCC. Immediately the operator (who was a nice and courteous) transfers me to another operator who said she will submit my iPhone for unlocking. 2 days later I connect the iPhone to iTunes and it popped up with a message stating "congratulations, your iPhone is unlocked".
Mission accomplished.
It was only after I told the operator I would file a complaint with the FCC, suddenly their tune changed and they were more than happy to have my phone unlocked. AT&T even called me back a few days later to make sure my phone got unlocked.
This is not the first time I dropped the "I will file a complaint with the FCC". The power transformer outside my house was defective and generating tons of interference to my TV, am/fm Radio, WX radio, etc. 18 months of dealing with the power company to fix the problem (power company engineers came out and confirmed the problem and was noted on my account) but nothing was done to correct the problem. Fed up, I filed a complaint with the FCC, and guess what!? The power company was out within 5 days of the complain filed and fixed the problem. FCC field agent actually came to my house 2 days after I filed the complaint and verified the bad transformer which was generating the interference.
