THE European Commission told the mobile phone industry yesterday that it could not use technology to tie customers to one service provider. The commission said it had written to manufacturers and operators telling them that customers must be able to deactivate the so called SIM locks that connect mobile phones to specific companies.

"This will prevent the anti competitive effects of the feature vis a vis existing or new operators, and avoid a reinforcement of the division of the mobile phone market along national lines," it said in a statement.

The commission said consumers who want to switch operators are sometimes required to return their handsets to the company to get the SIM lock deactivated - or to pay that company a large sum to get instructions on how to do it.