Phone companies rightly charge extra to pay off subsidy of phone as user is 'buying' it over time. But once the phone is paid for, if it was paid for up front, they should be required to bill at lesser rate as there is no subsidy provide!!

Oh yes, they should be required to pay back all the people they have defrauded over time as well!

Typical of those with blind hatred for our President.

And selfish.

I am sure there's plenty of blind trust to go around. Typical of people worshippers and corporate shill psych.

I see that you are an expert at it. DOH! Thanks for playing.

Make it ILLEGAL for us to sell cell phones. Seriously - think about it -

Get rid of the subsidy ALL together. It's too much and we lose between $2 to $12 million a WEEK in stolen goods from our Distribution centers.


All you do is buy services from us.

Now - if Apple and Samsung etc. etc. will show integrity and make CERTAIN they charge the consumer at the one per purchase price instead of the million at a time cost of goods - all will be right in the world.

I truly do not understand WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY we even have to sell the phones.

Folks go to Wally World for their TVs and spend hundreds of dollars on that - use the same model for cell phone service.

It's a luxury - not a necessity - and needs to be treated as such.

And I'm looking from a finance perspective - shutting down the stores and making them the size of service kiosks, not having to handle defective devices, stolen devices, etc. etc. Just the overhead of doing business in and of itself is a good thing. OR - Flip it. Now you would have say - a Cell Provider customer service rep in the Apple Store - or Microsoft Store.


This shift (hopefully it shifts) opens the door for us to shut down the device part of the business and really make the consumer take full responsibility for their device AND make those devices OWNED for the entire life cycle by their manufacturers.


This is a huge win for the cell service providers. Trust me. It WILL lead to mass layoffs and such but in the interest of progress FOR the CONSUMER it's going to be necessary. You can't keep all those folks employed if we simply shut three major functional groups of our business model.


Oh and if you don't think that Open Development was the doorway to this - you are out of your mind. It's more than just phones. It's cameras, fitness trackers, ipads, tablets, etc. etc.

If cameras can be sold without service? Why not phones. Makes no sense - and I'm an 'insider'.

Time for a change folks!


Pssst - not being totally hard hearted here - but I came back from the dead after Global Crossing tanked. In Technology - we anticipate that things always fall apart - and nothing gold can stay. Then something else rises out of the dust. Me? I just need to make it to 50 (which I can - this is going to take awhile) then my husband and I jump full time to our home in Italy (he's from there).

It's just that the carriers incentivize you doing the contract route, so you are disinclined to hop to another carrier. That's why it isn't cheaper for service for an unlocked, fully-paid phone. They don't WANT you to have one of those, but they can't actually stop you, so they give you incentives not to.

Just buy prepaid service.

Did you know that beginning in September of 2010 ANY Verizon Wireless tested and approved for network device could be used as prepaid? Which IS cheaper and out of contract?


Go to Craigslist -that's where a lot of the phones are that they lift via social engineering and brute force. The AuthoriteH won't allow us to just totally remove those MEID's/ESN's from our system (make into bricks). . .


Go to Wally World and get yourself a prepaid card and off you go.

It's the same for TMobile, Sprint, AT & T, Verizon, etc. etc.


And it's really not about incentives - it's about the shiniest and brightest thing. That's why the consumer flips out or rather WILL flip out and drool over the iPhone 3,768 in three years. Between January 2006 and December 2007 I launched 57 devices for a Major Carrier. Three of those were just color changes - and people freaking bought the thing.


There's actually a MAJOR move right now - but you have to alter the way you look at it. Know what that move is?

To slow DOWN consumers swapping out their phone every year. You would be amazed at the number of people that pay the 1 year contract price. Slow it down. Watch "The Story of Stuff". Check out the Conflict Minerals Resolution under Dodd Frank. Slow this stuff down.


Something happened last year - to understand it - read up on Average Return Per Account or ARPA. It has replace ARPU - Average Return Per User. This is also why you are seeing data sold in 'chunks' and why you can have so many devices on them.

It's about the service now. It's no longer about the device.

Until the consumer changes of forces us to change or . . . we force THEM to change - things won't change.


When they allow you to unlock your phone- will you do the brave thing and not get a new one five minutes later? Will you treat it like a t.v.?

Hey - I didn't buy a flat screen until late 2010 when my 1994 beast finally died. I'm not trading in my current phone until it's really really really dead. And when I came to work for this company in 2006? My Nokia was 5 years old.

I want the consumers to behave like me. And we can drive this -and make the PHYSICAL environment a lot better, and the supply chain a whole bunch more kinder.

Phones can entirely replace other devices. When's the last time a TV replaced a second device for another purpose?

I jumped from a 2 year old smart phone to a new one in December. 5MP software image stabilization camera, to a 9mp mechanically stabilized camera. Big enough screen to pretty much replace my need for a laptop entirely, and enough battery to last a day. This device has even replaced things like paper shop manuals for use in my garage.

Extra cpu core, faster CPU, I can do electrical engineering work ON the phone, including circuit simulation.

There are reasons for some people to upgrade in a shorter timeframe, not for all people, but certainly some people. I can't speak to the people that upgrade to get a new color. No idea. I got mine when it was still selling out of stock, and I'd have taken any color they had. I didn't care if it was pink. It's going in an otterbox anyway, so it'll survive my days.

I never give them back the old phone. I either recycle it myself, donate it to a women's shelter, or keep it as a spare, in case the otterbox fails to protect it.

If you slow innovation or need to - isnt that the fault of the manufacturer? Not the wireless provider? The OEMs put the word on the street of the latest and greatest and the consumer gets pissed if the carrier doesn't buy a million of them toute suite.

Know how I know? Remember the iPhone launch. Who had it? Who didn't? Whose customers got pissed? Whose were happy? BTW - I see no difference in my HTC Eris and that Droud RAZR Maxx HD that is still sitting in the box (gift from OEM). They both make phone calls, send receive SMS and pic/vid - both browse.

Psst - if no one buys it - the OEMs won't make something.

I'm just shocked you think the consumer is not part ofthe cycle of "stuff".

Now me? I get moist over rare antique china, flatware, linens . . . But it can't just be "made". Real craftsmanship went into it.

It's funny - the number of people I walk the halls with that love old antique and unique things.

I bet if you could work where I do for a week you would get "it".

Just don't hold my five figure bonus check last Friday against me. Those stop - only when the consumer stops. Until then - we are getting rich.

I buy phones only for the inherent capability, I don't buy phones that are only slightly different, cosmetically different, or slightly better. I follow major innovations that enable me to do more on the phone, and less on other devices, and that contributes to MY income, which is great. I get more done, in more places, during the day, so I can spend more time with my family when I'm done. (And it better enables me to get things done while commuting on mass transit, an incentive to get out of the car)

I don't disagree on your point about the treadmill of 'new' shiny stuff. Most of what you say totally applies, to most users, just not all. Most users are getting a bad deal on it, and wasting resources, and that is unfortunate.

My 'vintage' taste is in vehicles, and camping, so to each his own.

Found it at Amazon - triple minutes for the 400 minute card + 250 bonus + 10 when I activated. While this is not a smartphone, for the first time, I can read the screen without my reading glasses. I added photos and a bunch of music and podcasts, so I listen to my music/podcasts like it was my ipod (haven't picked up my 6th gen ipod yet - only thing missing is an FM radio). I had a dumb phone with a major carrier, so of course this feels like quite a change for the better. I almost went with Net10 and an unlimited plan with a smartphone, but thought I'd try this for less first. For me, this is all I need.

And I get free wi-fi on the phone. I've had it for about 5 days, and it is wonderful. And I am going to upgrade the SD card to 32g (from 2g) so I can store a bit more. I am sure that someone with an Iphone would call it stupid, but the fact remains that this is a phone that has a good feel and a responsive touch screen. I thought prepaid phones were just odd looking little things, but this is not like that at all.

Still pleasantly surprised by this.

People here will laugh because I have one of the first Androids. My back up is my LG Venus (should the Eris break) that I have hours of music loaded on and is hooked up to my dog tag Bluetooth headset. I don't one a music player - its my old phone!

It's made more funny - if you could see how the OEM's come into headquarters and all but stuff te dang things down our pants!

I commend you for not being a slave to the stupidity.

Especially people without land lines. There is no going back to everyone having land lines, isn't going to happen.

But what if someone like Nokia could sell the devices they sell in China and India to those emerging populations to us - and what if -

Here's an idea I'm floating. . .

What IF we had a "Phone at Home Plan"? Think about it - this is what my mom does. She has a senior account. When my dad died two years ago - she moved her old landline number to a $10 a month 'land line' account. That's her ONLY home phone now. Granted - she insisted on getting the iThing on my account for her work/social life/ FacebookTwitterLives but her 'home' phone at $10 a month plus taxes etc. is cheaper than her Frontier (Citizens) landline now.

The key thing - getting someone like Nokia to offer the 'landline' phone on their website dirt cheap. And it's gotta gotta gotta be simple simple. Think people with tin roofs (that's how Nokia explained it to me a few years ago - the people these devices are focused on) - get them in cheap - unlocked.CDMA AND GSM capable. Put both chipsets in there.

Voila. Customer buys the phone. Customer picks a home service provider.


I've been in the telecom game a long time. I don't have the plain old local telco experience. Though I started in Frontier Comm - it was Carrier Services back in 1997. My group was bought out by Global Double Crossing. So ALL I know is telecom is SUPPOSED to be sexy.

It's all about making up sexy billing schemes. ^ This is a scheme that I believe would be 'sexy' for Wall Street AND 'sexy' for (especially) the baby boomer consumer.

Have an internet connection? Free nationwide calling. At least until Google starts charging for GV, which it has said it won't this year.

They either sell you the phone outright or add $10-20/month to the bill until the phone is paid off.

They are busy passing women's health bills outlawing their free choice.

Jobs bills NEVER come to the floor.

The House spends its time getting money for the rich

This is within the purview of the Executive. Congress needs to shit or get off the pot on the jobs plan. The WH is absolutely within it's wheelhouse issuing an opinion to the Library of Congress to rule differently on this issue, as the WH has to enforce it, and that costs money.

What is meant by "unlocking" a phone? And please, I know it's not the obvious.

Does it mean to "root" the phone? I have an HTC Evo 4G that's unrooted, and I read somewhere you can root the phone yourself, but it's tricky and risky.

It might be locked to AT&T, or to Verizon, and so on. Essentially, if you buy the phone from them, the theory goes that they are subsidizing the cost of the phone over the life of your contract, so you shouldn't be allowed to simply switch the phone to someone else's network.

The locking occurs in software in the phone's OS, not in the SIM card. So a locked AT&T phone simply won't accept a Verizon SIM, until you unlock the phone. This is done by entering a "secret" code into the phone. It used to be that carriers were required to give you the unlock code after some period of time, but that rule expired. That's what the hubbub is about.

This is *separate* from "rooting" (or jailbreaking) a phone, which removes the restrictions put in place by the OS to prevent you from installing applications that they haven't "blessed". You can unlock a phone without rooting it.

It's disabling or bypassing the security restrictions between apps and the device. So a stolen app can now be used or an app can be installed without your knowledge and do things like copy all the data off and take continuous pictures and send them to China. Even better is when it signs you up for premium SMS or spams your friends.

I understand rooting for installing apps you want. But once you break the security model there is more risk as a consumer. A friend took his rooted Android to Defcon and came back and it was so hacked remotely he threw it away.

When you pick a phone you also pick a carrier, such as ATT, and that phone cannot be used on another carrier even after the 2 year contract has expired. This means that you can't shop for competitive pricing because of this lock. It is a form of monopoly, in other words -- capitalism at its finest. But I could be wrong.

I got my phone via contract with Sprint. I have nothing but good things to say about their service...there's not been any problems with phone reception, and customer service has been great.

The only problems have been lack of 4G in my area (I got my phone in anticipation for it, but it's still not here after waiting two years), and that the cost of service is ridiculously high (as is with all carriers).

Maybe the new policies will bring about lower service prices?

A phone company can forbid you from installing apps on a modern phone that they haven't blessed, for instance. Apple and some ebook readers are particularly fond of that idea.

They have alterior motives that are damaging to the community.

because there is no legitimate reason to disallow unlocking a smartphone.

I notice that you yourself have failed to praise this statement by the White House. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying...

It was the way things were done until last year: Plan ended, you could get the phone unlocked.

In the last year or so the regulation changed. It was announced by the LoC. It was ignored.

Until recently when it made it into the NYT, NPR, and other mainstream media sources. Sort of a scandal that a policy that allowed phones to be unlocked had, during an election year, been subject to a period of public review and comment and administrative input and the policy had been reversed. Nobody in the administration cared. They had bigger fish to fry.

Suddenly--after it broke in the media--it became something that this administration could run to fix. Reversing a policy it probably could easily have prevented in the first place, and preventing the harm to those who've been harmed since the policy changed.

So now President Obama is firmly, after a bit of a media tempest, firmly on the side of fixing a mistake that his administration allowed to happen. Oddly, much of the background's suddenly been overlooked.

Truly amazing for his incredibly awesome awesomeness in this all-important matter. If you need to fight dragons, it's best to wait for the dragon eggs to hatch without letting anybody know that you knew where the eggs were and waited for them to hatch, and even better to wait for the dragons to start burning fields and killing sheep.

where the telecom money is going.
Just listen to which congressman jumps up first and says this is treasonous to small business.

Like the feds and most any other gummit agency just hand corporations the keys to anything they desire.

Socialism for the wealthy, free-market for everybody else

Better yet, nationalize communications.

Internet access should be a Constitutional Right.

when we couldn't do that in the UK its so long ago.

It's more of a gray area. People do it all the time without being arrested or fined now. It does have ramifications over some consumer law things such as warranties though, but overall carriers don't care too much, if you sign a contract and unlock your phone, you still have to pay the bill for that contract or the early termination fee. If you don't have a contract, then you bought the phone flat out with no subsidy.