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Comment by biafra | Hacker News Reader

To me all those problems with carriers dictating anything looks like a US-only problem.

You can fix this! Just buy more unlocked phones. Since 1994 I never bought a net locked phone. Subsidizing does not have to be linked to a net lock. Subsidizing was never (AFAIR) linked to a net lock in Germany. The iPhone was a first for us (here in Europe). From here it looks like the iPhone brought this consumer-unfriendly practice to us. Thank goodness no Android phone is net locked here in Germany at least no net locked only.

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> Just buy more unlocked phones.

In my experience, if you buy an unlocked phone, you hand the carrier a bonus payment of the cost of the phone. They don't give you any cheaper service.

And, when I went to replace a Nokia POS that died 3 days after warranty, I discovered that Verizon even subsidizes their prepaid phones: you can get an LG VX5600 for $40 with new service, but to replace the Nokia with the existing account, they wanted $200. (Allegedly, they "don't sell" the Nokia in question as a prepaid, and thus couldn't offer a direct replacement; which raises the question of why phones they "don't sell" come with their branding and work on their network.)

Here is an example of how it works in Denmark:

https://www.telmore.dk/t2/shop/shop.do?shopUrl=product.actio...

The slider let you choose between low initial price, high monthly payment (top position) and high initial price, no monthly payment (bottom position).

No matter what, the phone is always unlocked.

The only exception is this one

https://www.telmore.dk/t2/shop/shop.do?shopUrl=product.actio...

which is only sold with a high monthly payment, and locked for six months.

So I don't really see Apple as saving us from the tyranny of the carriers, in this part of the world.

T-mobile USA is (AFAIK) the only US provider that is making unlocked phones better deals. They provide two service types: with contract and without contract with the latter being cheaper.

I can confirm this. I have T-Mobile with an unlocked Nexus One - $66/month after all taxes and fees, 500 anytime minutes, unlimited everything else.

In addition to getting it cheaper for prepaying each month, I get $5 off for letting them bill my card automatically.

(Incidentally, T-Mobile is a German company).

BTW, my friend was considering a N1, so I did the math to see if you actually save money by buying the phone for $600 upfront versus paying for it over two years. You do.

(But if you are just going to put it on your credit card and pay it off over those two years, then you lose. T-Mobile lends you the phone at a very low interest rate. Or gouges you on service for the unsubsidized phone.)

T-Mobile will gladly sell you a plan with a significantly cheaper monthly price if you pay the full cost of the phone up front.

t-mobile also carried the first android phone (g1) and worked with google to launch the nexus one on google's terms (selling it from google's website in subsidized and unlocked versions). they are about to launch the g2, a new android phone that carries a vanilla version of android that will presumably be easy to root and reflash.

t-mobile has visual voicemail and billing apps for android. i think they're the only carrier to "get" this whole android thing.

You actually can't buy a non-industrial device from anyone but Verizon with their branding and firmware that they will allow on their network. They fought FCC regulations that forced them to open up and lost (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/11/verizon_open.h...), but instead just made their device approval process more public — they never actually got rid of it: http://opennetwork.verizonwireless.com/

T-mobile offers less expensive plans with no contract (and no subsidized phone).

I was wondering about that. Why bother buying an unlocked phone if your payments don't change?

I mean, you have the freedom to change carriers at will, but I wonder how often that's exercised.

This is the fundamental win with the current US system.

If every phone existed as an unlocked/unsubsidsidized variant -- those would still hardly move. Why pay $500 for a phone, when you can get the same phone for $199, but you simply have a two year contract. I've been with the same carrier for 10 years, despite having the option to leave at many points in time.

In many regards, I think our subsidized mobile phone system trumps the systems outside of the US.

If most phones are unlocked the market will certainly come up with competitive prices for both phones and carrier deals. That's how it basically works in the non-US systems.

As long as the phone is bundled with, say, a 24 month service you'll definitely end up paying more and the nominal "plain phone prices" can be arbitrary. You don't get $500 for "free" as the real price of the phone would be much lower. Or, alternatively, the monthly charge would be much lower without the phone if there was competition there.

It's just that contracts are too lucrative for telcos and they all know it, and nobody wants to start the competition.

Outside the US we have the option of subsidised phones or pay-as-you go deals depending on what you actually need.

A win from whose perspective?

The users. I get the carriers to give me $300 for something I plan on doing anyways (using their service for the next two years).

It would be like Comcast subsidizing my purchase of a TV if I kept Comcast for two years. I'd jumpt on that deal now (assuming the subsidy was $300+ dollars), because I anticipate keeping Comcast for two years (even with the coming internet TV threats). And certainly for the past 10 years, it would have been an even bigger no brainer.

That's bullshit ... what you get is lock-in for 2 years, a period of time in which they can fuck with you however they want, all for $300 ... which you pay back one way or another, especially when you've got a functional oligopoly: i.e. SMS messages are 4 times more expensive than receiving data from space.

Yes I've been with the same carrier for 6 years, but I'm using a pre-paid plan, and I get better deals than customers with contracts. I can also scale down my monthly payments ... i.e. I'm only paying for included 3G traffic when I need it.

That's odd. I'm with Sprint. On a legacy plan from 2002. I get unlimited data for $10/month. They've never screwed me over, AFAIK.

And, yes all this for $300. The choice you've made is to presumably pay $500 or more for the phone, and then maybe marginally cheaper monthly fees. Although I'd argue that my monthly fees are quite likely cheaper than yours, although its in a plan you can no longer get. But Sprint still grandfathered contracted customers with it.

And last time I checked, all of the major cell phone carriers allow you to buy the phone w/o a contract. So feel free to spend the $500 for a phone. No one is stopping you.

> So feel free to spend the $500 for a phone. No one is stopping you.

Actually I'm not spending $500 for a phone who's battery only lasts for a single day and has signal issues ... most smartphones are like that, I know ... unfortunately for all their capabilities, are kind of uncomfortable for making phone calls.

I do have an iPhone 3GS, but I consider it a handheld with 3G connectivity that happens to be able to make phone calls.

I'm paying 9 euros for a data plan with 1 GB per month / ~ 7.2 Mbps (the actual speed I'm getting, the plan is for ~11 Mbps).

Of course, I live in Europe where prepaid plans are much more popular, being an area with lots of competition ... which makes sense since the cost of switching is low.

I would also like to point out, that the reason for this is that Nokia has been fighting carriers from since they started making phones, up to and including lobbying for legislation that banned network-locked cell phones in many countries.

Why do you thing they never made much headway in the USA? Because Verizon and AT&T spent more money greasing the congress, and Nokia didn't want to give up.

Nokia never made much headway in the USA because all of their good models were GSM phones -- in the US that meant t-mobile or AT&T -- and back before the iPhone appeared most US cell phone users were on CDMA networks (Verizon and Sprint.) Nokia decided to roll their own CDMA chip instead of paying off Qualcomm (big mistake) and ended up with a weak presence in the CDMA market. Nokia screwed the pooch all on their own when it came to fumbling the US market.

Android phones in Germany (except for G1 and N1) are still dependent on the manufacturer for OS updates and so on. The user (you) can't decide you want 2.2 on your phone when it's released.

And you can in the US?

What other phones can be updated without manufacturer support?

Even for the ADP1(G1) and the N1 you need some binary-only files from HTC.

I was successful in building Froyo for my N1. Not so much for the ADP1. (No GSM and no Wifi) I am missing some binaries that seem not available in the stock 1.6 image for the ADP1.

Not true, you can buy unbranded devices.

It is worth noting that in every region where Apple does not have carrier exclusivity, they sell unlocked phones.

So the locking is an exclusivity / subsidy component.

It seems clear to me, by studying Apple's patents, that they originally wanted the phone to be unlocked and on every carrier, they even tried to end the subsidy system by selling the iPhone direct....

My theory is that carrier exclusivity was the price they paid for maintaining complete control of the OS. This seems to make more sense in the UK, where O2 was the exclusive carrier to begin with, until it was given to the other carriers later on.

It was a bargaining chip.

I agree completely, and they needed the deal to get the first phone out there. Now that it has been such a success, they don't need that leverage band starting to go nonexclusive and to unlock the devices.

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