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Nothing was ever subsidized by the carrier, it was just amortized over those two years. The difference of off contract was exactly the price of a phone over a t
by overcast 11y ago
Nothing was ever subsidized by the carrier, it was just amortized over those two years. The difference of off contract was exactly the price of a phone over a two year period. Which is why they started that ATT Next nonsense to get people locked into renting their phones.
- jessaustin 11y agoThe difference of off contract was exactly the price of a phone over a two year period. I'd be surprised to find there was no carrier profit built into this.
- overcast 11y agoThere is always carrier profit. They aren't buying Apple phones for Apple price.
- jessaustin 11y agoSo perhaps "exactly" is not the adverb you intended?
- overcast 11y agoIn my case, it was exactly the cost difference.
- jonknee 11y agoActually they were/are and it has been tough for the carriers. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/10/business/la-fi-iphone-blues-20120211 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/10/business/la-fi-iphon...
- mikeash 11y agoSome carriers had no difference between on and off contract. With those, if you didn't upgrade your phone every two years you were leaving money on the table.
- overcast 11y agoThat also occurred, people sitting on old phones, paying that monthly amortization costs forever.
- bestnameever 11y agoThis sounds reasonable but in my experience I have noticed that the price of the monthly phone payments have often been more than the discount given for the previously offered non-subsidy plan. This has been the case for T-Mobile and Sprint, at least in the scenarios that I have looked at.
- JohnTHaller 11y agoQuite a few carriers in the US charged the same rate whether you got a phone with them or not for years. I think Verizon was the last holdout to give a discount if you bought your own device outright.