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What Ever Happened To The Open Handset Alliance?

MadFatMan

Sep 18, 2012, 11:19 AM
This would allow ANYONE to manufacture and sell you a device and the consumer just buy a SIM from a carrier of their choice and plug it in.

Do AWAY with carrier limitations on equipment
Do AWAY with Handset Subsidy
Do AWAY with 24 month Contracts
Do AWAY with early termination fees
Do AWAY with Assurion

In Europe this is how it is done. The carrier doesn't provide you a phone. You BUY your phone at FULL PRICE, You are responsible and take care of your device and you pay a carrier a monthly access charge...

For instance, you can buy an iPhone outright from Virgin Mobile for FULL MSRP BUT your monthly plan would only be $30 a month... That's what cell service should cost if we all werent taking out 24 month high interest mini ...
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bluecoyote

Sep 18, 2012, 11:23 AM
"Open Handset Alliance" is Google's term for Android licensees.

Also, I lived in Europe, and that's definitely not how it's done. They subsidize phones too, unless you're going for their outrageously overpriced prepaid plans.

You're welcome to look it up at some european providers such as MoviStar, Orange, or T-Mobile where they clearly list their "On Contract" pricing for telephones.
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T Bone

Sep 18, 2012, 12:03 PM
Monthly service plans would not be any cheaper without the subsidy...and you're oversimplifying how it is done in Europe...most people don't buy handsets outright, they sign up for a 'tariff' which basically means that a certain amount is added to their bill every month until they pay off the cost of the phone, phones are in fact paid off in installments, with very few people just paying the full cost outright at the beginning....in fact it is very similar to the American system...
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srich27

Sep 19, 2012, 9:30 AM
That actually sounds like how T-Mobile works here. I don't know if they even do subsidies, but they certainly offer phones through installment plans.

Does Europe all use the same spectrum? I imagine that would make cross-carrier jumping a lot simpler than in the US as well. Even when carriers share cellular tech (GSM/CDMA) they don't necessarily use the same spectrum, so phones really only work on the network you buy them from (assuming you're not ok with 2G data on your 4G phone plan).
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