The Death of E-Readers Is All Your Fault

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Ankh

So, plans with "0$ phones", tabs, purchase plans, discounts... it all amounts to this: service provider can get away with requirement for "sim only" customer to pay a premium, so that plans with locked-in devices are offered at par or cheaper. If they were pushed by the competition, that desire to force lock-in on customers would go away. Better a customer that is not locked in than no customer at all.

But $0 phones are never no cost since you have to have a plan were you pay for much more voice calls than you use. And that money is of course used to pay for the phone.

Then there is the issue if the phone have modified firmware. In the US as I understand it it is common that tethering is disabled in the phones that you get very cheaply with a plan. Also the plans do not allow tethering.

This is totally different in Europe were it is much more common to buy phones and plans seperately. But that means that the phone will be much more expensive than the perceived phone price in the US and a transformation to paying so much for the phone is very hard to do. Google failed when they tried it a couple of years ago but maybe they will succeed now with the Nexus 4.

[hidari]

Tethering.....love it...use it with my first and new smartphone....Casio Gz'one type L with my Nexus 7....

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by tompe

But $0 phones are never no cost since you have to have a plan were you pay for much more voice calls than you use. And that money is of course used to pay for the phone.

Here in the Netherlands, it's pretty simple: If a SIM-only plan is X Euros a month, the same plan (as far as data limit and minutes are concerned) with a 'free' phone is X + Y Euros a month, where Y * <nr of months of contract> = '<roughly the price of that 'free' phone>'

Effectively you pay for that phone anyway, either in one go (if you buy it yourself) or in monthly installments (if you get it 'free' with your plan). The providers aren't giving them to you, and probably aren't losing money on them.

[idraw22]

Hmm,

I don't have any tablets, haven 't found a reason to get one, but I have four readers each with a dif use, sigh, I luv reading!

[ragnevi]

I was getting a new Galaxy Note 2 since I lost my other, my phone company have not had the Galaxy Note 2 so I had bought one earlier. I have a flat rate subscription, and they guy in the store looked at me and said I have never seen anyone phone so much.
I've asked how much, and he answered 4600 minutes last months. It didn't affect my monthly fee, but now I can't change company in two years.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Ankh

But, auspex, that "deduction" from the tab, it isn't free. If there was no "tab" system whatsoever, but we had an option of pure "BYO phone", the service should be cheaper, no?

And that is what I said, I found no service where they offer a "sim-only" discount. None of them tells us "it costs X dollars with phone purchase plan, Y dollars if you bring your own phone".

I didn't say it was free - I said I, and many others, were in fact buying the phone, when you said that Canadians don't usually buy the phones.

In fact, they do tell you it costs a different amount if you bring your own phone. If you take a phone, you either pay for it, or sign a contract - and except at the bottom end, you still pay something up-front for the phone. If you bring your own phone, you won't have to sign a contract, and you get the SIM for nothing.

I don't see that the service itself should be any cheaper - I looked at buying unlocked phones, and couldn't find a them appreciably cheaper than getting one of the ones Virgin offered (that is, I could find Chinese knockoffs for about 2/3 the price, but then you have no guarantees). Which implies that the telcos are selling the phones at approximate cost to get us to use their overpriced service.