As pointed out in the comments, Virgin Mobile's (sprint mvno) Android offering is more or less doing this already. The Samsung Intercept is a mid range android

As pointed out in the comments, Virgin Mobile's (sprint mvno) Android offering is more or less doing this already. The Samsung Intercept is a mid range android 2.1 offering that's going for as low as $175 or so with no contract ($250 MSRP). More notable is their new rate plan - $25/mo for "unlimited" data/texts/300 minutes with no contract... compare that to $60-$70/mo for the same service from Sprint (on the same network). It's not for everybody, but it's a very visible sign that there is a lot of air left to be let out of high end mobile.