On the recordFebruary 25, 2014
I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, when I was alerted as to this change, like Mr. Polis, I asked, What will be the impact? And, at first glance, I was concerned that it could be a poison pill, that it could limit the ability, for example, for somebody to take trade-ins of thousands of phones and unlock them, but I found no such case because they are buying from an individual. At that moment, they choose to unlock it as part of the arrangement, and you now have an unlocked phone. There is no prohibition on buying 500 unlocked phones and selling 500 unlocked phones. As a matter of fact, when I went through the language of bulk sales, I could find essentially no possible business plan that would require the unlocking of bulk phones, except as to buying from a wholesaler who did not intend them to be unlocked, intended them to be sold individually, unlocking them, and then selling them off to another party. Any transaction in which the product gets to an individual or in which unlocking occurs at the time of the individual is fully covered by this bill. So although I did share the concern of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis) that there was a scenario in which somebody would not be able to unlock a phone, I discovered that there was nothing that the consumer would be affected by that could possibly affect this. For example, let me say that, hypothetically, I am that individual, that company, and Mr. Polis and I have something in common, which is we both ran companies.…
