The Carriers should just say NO! to Apple.

[azazel1024]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Why would it be a game they want to play?
At the moment they can play each of the carriers off against the others to get good prices. They are sucking profits away from the carriers and to themselves.
If they get into the carrier business they are in direct competition. Why?

Not saying they would want to necessarily, but they could.

One advantage to them would be they'd own the whole kit and kaboodle then from software to hardware to carrier. So long as there are competitors in your industry, there is nothing monopolistic about that. You have choices for other phones that work with other carriers with other software. Just like there is nothing monopolistic about OSX only running on Apple Macs...you have other choices for personal computers. If it was one operating system to rule them all, or one hardware choice or one phone carrier, it would be monopolistic.

Of course FCC and DOJ are interested in preserving competition (within reason) which is a big part of the reason the AT&T/T-mobile merger was blown out of the water, so there is a resonable chance that Apple buying up ANY mobile carrier might be shot down, especially if there was any hint that the newly purchased carrier was going to shift to only allowing Apple devices and would also exclude all others, as it reduces market choice, though it doesn't precisely limit any of the other carriers (though if they can't carry iPhones, and fanbois and general users continue on in the Apple ecosphere, the big carriers would lose huge percentages of their subscribers).