 ropeguruPremium
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA | reply to bugabuga
Re: And this time it will be different because... Maybe, and that is a BIG maybe, Google will start to push the now dead issue of BYOD to all carriers. Wasn't it a few years back that the large carriers agreed to do this with all the media hype around it and then it just died? |
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 GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:20 | I don't know about in the US, but BYOD is alive and well in Canada. If the phone vendor has relations with the carrier, it's usually free to do (like if you buy an Apple phone unlocked from Apple, you can use it with any carrier), and for others there's usually a nominal fee for the SIM card. Fido, for example, charges $10.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org |
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Well, the problem is that they don't give you a price break if you bring your phone. Yes, you can bring some other Verizon compatible phone to Verizon. No, you will pay the same price, which defies the purpose. And even not having a contract would be difficult (they used to allow you to get a 1 year contract in-store with "your device" but that isn't an option any more, as far as I know)
So in the end user:
- has to pony up $400+ for a device
- still needs to sign a contract
- still pays the full price
Which, reasonably, leads to most users just shrugging and getting a subsidized version for $199 instead. I mean for an average user, if you're still locked into contract, do you really care about device being unlocked? You can't take it to another operator without breaking contract anyway.
Yes, I'd love Google to convince all carriers to have no-contract BYOD plans with reasonable prices. But I'm somewhat skeptical. Cause it's like going to carriers and saying "Well could you just charge a bit less, and add unlimited data?". Without some incentive carriers aren't interested.
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Hyperom: Rants about life, politics, technology |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | That's the big gotcha. They want you to pay the same price as the people who have subsidized phones, and they want you to be locked into the same 2 year framework and even have the same ETF's which of course is just criminal on many levels.
The advantages are if you use the phone on a pre-paid no contract basis.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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