I'm curious--is there any way you can 'write off' the equipment at a later time, say, if a customer cancels after a year? I don't see any need to automatically unlock/release the equipment to be used on anyone else's service, but if you have no intention of re-using the equipment (maybe you do plan to re-use?), why go through the hassle of asking that it be returned upon cancellation? If you do opt to write off the equipment (presuming it's possible to do so legally without tripping over tax issues), would you consider unlocking the devices upon request (with or without an unlock fee) of your ex-customers?

As the masses adopt VoIP, I don't know how important it would be to cater to the customer who wants to be able to reuse the equipment, similar to catering to the BYOD crowd. I just ask because it was a question that Vonage wrestled with a few years ago. IIRC, they no longer unlock adapters of canceling customers, but they also do not require that the equipment be returned. To me, the bigger issue of the equipment return is the hassle of boxing it up and taking it to UPS/FEDEX/DHL or the post office. Although another way to cut down on the customer's hassle is to provide prepaid shipping labels, that comes with the added costs of paying for the shipping and the internal man-hours to support obtaining, distributing, and accounting for these labels...