Irrelevant, the phone should not be in question. If you break the contract, you will pay the contract breakage fee, the phone is not even considered. It doesn't have anything to do with the contract, it's just yet another way for the company to lock down the slaves.

Unlocking a phone doesn't end your cell phone contract, and subsidized phones come with an early termination fee if you choose to end your contract early.

I accidentally upvoted you without reading your entire post. Here's an honorary downvote:

-1

Anyway, your argument is again moot, because it doesn't matter if the phone is subsidized. You signed a contract to pay off the phone over the course of 2 years through the carrier. When you buy a car, financed, does the dealer say "We're not going to let you change the timing of the engine! You didn't pay us in full, so you can't do what you want to!"

No, they DO let you do what you want to, because that is your car. Not theirs. It's off their hands. Why should it be any different for mobile devices? Also, say you buy a locked phone off-contract, full price -- but it's still locked to AT&T, and you do use AT&T for one year, but then want to switch to T-Mobile. You've paid off the phone. AT&T agrees, and they don't charge you any early termination fees. Then, you want to unlock it to use it on T-Mobile, but wait! You can't, because the DMCA doesn't let you.

Don't you see how unjust this is?