Free Runner price vs iphone 3G price

Stroller linux.luser at myrealbox.com
Wed Jun 11 19:38:26 CEST 2008


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.




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