On 11 Jun 2008, at 13:55, Shawn wrote: > My question is this: > say I buy a freerunner, but decide to switch to AT&T as my provider > (as I plan to do in the near future), will they not hit me with a > contract agreement anyway? Isn't that how you get the cheapest > minute/plans?
They may do it differently in the US (woah! Europe's market regulation might be good for the consumer!?!?!) but here in the UK the contract agreement is cheaper if you bring your own phone. Sure, a contract gets you the cheapest minute/plans (as long as you use them), but there's "cheapest" and cheapest. Here in the UK millions of people have old mobile phones they've already paid for, or on which the contract has already expired. Sure, they may go with O2 or Vodafone for their next contract because they get a "free" iPhone, but those existing unlocked phones don't get chucked in the landfill. So I go to Vodafone and say "I've got this old phone that my brother's throwing away, and I'd like a contract please"; if Vodafone only offer me a contract which includes a replacement phone then that new phone has to be paid for somehow in the terms of the contract; if I go to O2 instead and they say "ok, you don't want a new phone" then obviously they can make the contract cheaper. I am staggered this seems to be so difficult, and I'm not sure whether it's that the carriers make it so difficult in some parts of the world, or simply that the concept is so difficult to some people. Stroller. _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
