T-Mobile US Inc (NYSE:TMUS) has been pushing prepaid plans that have much lower fees than their customers, but charge full price for the phone itself (usually spread out as an installation plan). If the move to make its phones easier to unlock spreads to all of the phones that T-Mobile sells, it could be another sign that the company would rather compete on prices than defend a captured audience of users. For a service provider that still has a lot to do building its market share, the trade-off probably makes sense.