SIM cards for Freerunner (was Free Runner price vs iphone 3G price)

Kevin Dean kevin at foreverdean.info
Wed Jun 11 23:58:01 CEST 2008


On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Joe Pfeiffer <joseph at pfeifferfamily.net> wrote:
> Stroller writes:
>>
>>On 11 Jun 2008, at 15:44, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>
>>> Did you get a lower price on your contract than you would have with a
>>> phone?  Yes, they would have let me pay for a subsidized phone without
>>> giving me the phone...
>>
>>Where the heck are you?
>>
>>To the British it is quite *obvious* that a contract without a phone
>>is cheaper.
>
> US.  To me, it's quite obvious that a contract without a phone
> *should* be cheaper, but that's a long way from "is" (it actually
> worked out for the best, since I've had a working phne all these
> months as a result).

I'm an American and your statement confuses me. Why is it "obvious"
that a contract without a phone should be cheaper? The service
(cellular connectivity for voice and/or data) is the same service no
matter what phone you have.

In the US, the price of service contracts doesn't change. The price of
PHONES does when you agree to commit to a service contract but the
service contract doesn't.


>
>>The most obvious example of this is that one can choose how much to
>>pay up front - on can choose the phone "for free" with one set of
>>tariffs, or pay £75 on purchase and get the same number of minutes
>>for £10 a month less (on an 18-month contract, for example). One can
>>also get much cheaper contracts when no phone purchase is involved.
>

Not sure if you're confusing cause and effect here or if Brits just
look at "cellular service" differently than Americans. You are
implying that "the contract" is "the monthly service of voice/data
connectivity and a handset". In the US, ONLY the monthly service of
voice/data connectivity is contracted. It seems to me that what you're
ACTUALLY doing when you make your purchase is purchasing a phone at
some price, agreeing to a service level (monthly voice/data) and then
financing the cost of that device through your monthly bill. By paying
the £75 up front you're simply paying for the phone and NOT paying the
cost of it in installments monthly.

But from how I see it the service that is purchased (voice/data
connectivity) remains the same price.

> I haven't seen anything like that here.  The plan costs what it costs;
> you can pay varying amounts up front for different phones.
>
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