Home  ›  News  ›

Sprint Taking 'Wait-and-See' Approach to Phone Financing

Article Comments  

all discussions

show all 7 replies

what I took out of this is....

sp_5015

Feb 7, 2013, 1:19 PM
that sprint will ultimately end subsudies, and go for the financing method. It's a good move. I think that eventually, all providers will follow. We'll probably just get to the point where the carriers are cut out of the device buying, and they'll just offer the service.

Until the FCC puts up the nationwide WiFi network they keep talking about, that has the US wireless carriers and cable/broadband companies pooping bricks


WINNING
...
T Bone

Feb 7, 2013, 4:32 PM
I think carriers are just sick and tired of getting screwed over by customers who get a steep discount on a device, then cancel service a couple months later and take the device to another carrier....
...
rwalford79

Feb 7, 2013, 7:23 PM
T Bone said:
I think carriers are just sick and tired of getting screwed over by customers who get a steep discount on a device, then cancel service a couple months later and take the device to another carrier....



Except on Sprint and Verizon, there are major limitations to doing that. Who are you going to go to? MetroPCS? A lot of phones Sprint and Verizon sell arent even programmable to be used on MetroPCS, BlackBerry for instance, many Android devices, and once you do that, the retail value of the device goes down majorly if you ever want to resell it and make money. The average person isnt doing that. Only ghetto people do that, and lets face it, they belong on prepaid anyway, and cant even get contr...
(continues)
...
T Bone

Feb 7, 2013, 9:46 PM
Sprint sells several 'international' devices with GSM radios that can be unlocked and used on at&t or T-Mobile....like the iPhone....
...
ELawson87

Feb 7, 2013, 5:00 PM
"We'll probably just get to the point where the carriers are cut out of the device buying, and they'll just offer the service. "

This would be the best thing that could happen to the industry.
...
Zpike

Feb 8, 2013, 1:30 PM
What could happen is that the retail prices of the handsets will rise because the manufacturers are no longer buying them in bulk. There's also no guarantee that the carriers will drop the prices of their plans, as customers seem more than willing to pay the current rates. Verizon hasn't in 15 years. I think it will all come down to how the government plays its hand. If it starts trying to prop up wireless carriers, prices will remain high. But if carriers and handset manufacturers actually have to compete on price in a non-subsidized market, prices may drop. But with the way current consumers have been conditioned to just take it from manufacturers, people may be willing to accept price increases. Nothing is guaranteed. We'll have to wait a...
(continues)
...
T Bone

Feb 8, 2013, 3:14 PM
Truthfully right now I think that increased competition is only going to drive prices higher....

Pretty much the only basis on which to compete right now is 'we are advanced than everyone else', but making sure they actually are the most advanced means they are going to have to spend more on on R&D....but if it takes more money to build a handset, the handset isn't going to cost less...same thing with the networks, upgrading networks to LTE is not cheap, prices aren't going to go down when they are spending more money converting and upgrading the network...
...
Tofuchong

Feb 10, 2013, 5:29 PM
Woah - Nationwide WIFI? I've never heard anything about this before.

Would this even work? The 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands are unlicensed, if they set up a powerful nationwide wifi network, there will be HUGE interference issues. I'd really, really be interested on hearing what, if anything, they can do about that.

My router lists all available channels in it's setup, and it lists all of the non-overlap channels as well. Last time I checked, there were TWO channels that had no overlap.

They would need to either GREATLY increase the spectrum provided to wifi, or create a new unlicenced band, which wont happen.
...

This forum is closed.

Please log in to report a message to the moderator.

This forum is closed.


all discussions

Subscribe to Phone Scoop News with RSS Follow @phonescoop on Threads Follow @phonescoop on Mastodon Phone Scoop on Facebook Follow on Instagram

 

Playwire

All content Copyright 2001-2024 Phone Factor, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Content on this site may not be copied or republished without formal permission.