[olug] [OT] Pricing difference between new/locked and paid-for/unlocked phones?

[Jason N]

Because it's in their best interest to keep charging you the same rate.

and carriers no longer offer lower a lower price for you providing your own phone.. so they kind of all have you over a barrel.
The place that you win is by signing the two year contract.

a 64 gig iPhone costs $900+ MSRP... but you can get it for $399 from Sprint.  if you cancel after your 30 day grace window, you pay something like $250 to walk away (unless it's gone up lately that I don't know about).  So even if you want to do this, you can still walk away with a new phone for $549, not bad..



---- Dan Linder <dan at linder.org> wrote: 
On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 10:33, SndChaser <sndchaser at cerebralrift.org> wrote:

> Of course,
> there are carriers that are already making some very annoying decisions
> for us. (The Droid Razr still has a locked boot loader... Motorola
> offered the option of locking or unlocking the boot loader -- Verizon
> decided to ship with a locked boot loader...)
>

I've been paying for a cell phone since the mid 90's.

Back then, it was explained to me that the "locked" version was produced so
you had to stay with the carrier so they could recoup their cost for the
hardware.  This was reflected in a higher monthly cost.  It also was the
case that if you activated a compatible un-locked phone, the monthly cost
went down by an ammount (IIRC, $20/month) since the carrier didn't have to
defray the cost of the hardware.

Fastforward to 2011.  I switched to Verizon and noticed that the per-month
cost was the same regardless if I was using a new or purchased/unlocked
phone.

If I choose to keep using my 2-year-old phone, what is the current
reasoning that the carriers have for charging us both the same price?

Why do I continue to pay the same rate after I've gone past the 2-year
contract minimum?  The phone should be "paid for" from my understanding...

Dan

-- 
***************** ************* *********** ******* ***** *** **
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
    (Who can watch the watchmen?)
    -- from the Satires of Juvenal
"I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them."
    -- Isaac Asimov (Author)
** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* *****************
_______________________________________________
OLUG mailing list
OLUG at olug.org
https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug