AT&T: Device Subsidies Likely to Go Away
No subsidy - No carrier locking
If carriers want the customer to be fully responsible for their own device, then they need to stop locking phones. They also need to stop imposing restrictions on what those devices can do on their networks and they should never put any pre-installed bloat on the phones. Furthermore, there should be a "significant" drop in the price of the plan. But as long as they want to muck up good devices to do only what they want them to do and only work on their network, then they should be eating some of the cost of the phone. Plain and simple.
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If I'm not in a contract, why should it come locked in the first place? And why should it have carrier bloat on it?
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I understand back in the day with subsidized prices as a leash to keep people.(effective? so-so.) Now? No need sense if they do end subsidized pricing, you will just go to the manufacturer.
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No, the subsidy wasn't introduced to retain customers, it was introduced to get them to sign up in the first place.
I know it may sound absurd in this day and age when cell phones are ubiquitous, but when they were first introduced, carriers had a hard time convincing people to sign up. People would say 'why would I want a portable phone, I have my home phone, if someone calls me when I'm not there I have my answering machine, and if I need to make a call when I'm out pay phones are everywhere, why the hell would I want to carry a phone with me everywhere I go?'
They had to start giving the phones away to get people to sign up at all.
The cell phone subsidy is actually a continuation of the home phone subsidy which existed for de...
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I know it may sound absurd in this day and age when cell phones are ubiquitous, but when they were first introduced, carriers had a hard time convincing people to sign up. People would say 'why would I want a portable phone, I have my home phone, if someone calls me when I'm not there I have my answering machine, and if I need to make a call when I'm out pay phones are everywhere, why the hell would I want to carry a phone with me everywhere I go?'
They had to start giving the phones away to get people to sign up at all.
The cell phone subsidy is actually a continuation of the home phone subsidy which existed for de...
(continues)
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If there is no phone subsidy then people will be responsible for getting their own phone and the carrier has no input into the decision....what this actually means is the abolition of carrier branded equipment....there won't be 'at&t phones' and 'Verizon phones' and 'Sprint phones' etc.....there will only be phones period...
In talking about getting rid of subsidies, he's actually raising the possibility of eliminating carrier branded phones altogether.....that is the only practical implication of what he is saying.
In talking about getting rid of subsidies, he's actually raising the possibility of eliminating carrier branded phones altogether.....that is the only practical implication of what he is saying.
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This forum is closed.
