President Obama this afternoon signed into law a bill that makes it legal for consumers to unlock their cell phones.

"As long as their phone is compatible and they have complied with their contracts, consumers will now be able to enjoy the freedom of taking their mobile service - and a phone they already own - to the carrier that best fits their needs," the White House said in a statement.

The Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act was approved by Congress last month, and now becomes law. It specifies that consumers can unlock their cell phones without running afoul of copyright laws. It also directs the Librarian of Congress to consider whether gadgets like tablets should be eligible for unlocking.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, whose agency pushed for cell phone unlocking under former Chairman Julius Genachowski more than a year ago, said today the new law is a "positive development."

"When the wireless industry worked with the FCC on a voluntary agreement to unlock devices when consumers' contracts have been fulfilled, they took an important step forward," Wheeler said. "The President's signature today makes greater consumer choice the law of the land."

That agreement was announced in December, when the carriers committed to a voluntary set of principles that will make it easier for consumers to unlock their devices. But stakeholders wanted more, prompting the bill from Congress.

The debate dates back to an October 2012 decision from the Library of Congress's (LOC) Copyright Office, which gave consumers a 90-day window to unlock their phones without carrier permission before that practice became illegal in January.

The Copyright Office reviews the rules on unlocking (and jailbreaking) every three years, as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In 2012, regulators found that "there are ample alternatives to circumvention. That is, the marketplace has evolved such that there is now a wide array of unlocked phone options available to consumers."

That did not sit well with OpenSignal's Sina Khanifar, who added a petition to the White House site asking for the decision to be reversed. It passed the 100,000 e-signature threshold needed for an official White House response, and that response was posted in March 2013, with the Obama administration issuing its support for cell phone unlocking.

Today, the White House championed the bill as "a rare trifecta: a win for American consumers, a win for wireless competition, and an example of democracy at its best - bipartisan congressional action in direct response to a call to action from the American people."

For more, see PCMag's roundup of The Best Unlocked Phones.

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