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AT&T To Offer No-Contract iPhone
rfc1394 writes "While the regular price of an iPhone is $199 if you take a 2-year contract with AT&T, if you're willing to pay a lot more you can get one without a contract. An article in InfoWorld mentions that 'Freedom will come with a price — $599 for an 8GB device and $699 for a 16GB — but this will mark the first time consumers in the United States are able to buy an iPhone without being tied down to a two-year contract. The phone probably would still be locked for use only on AT&T's network, said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. But buyers could choose a pay-as-you-go plan for voice service.' The question still remains, does it make any sense to pay that much for a phone that is still locked to AT&T's network even if you aren't bound to a contract?" Update: 07/05 18:21 GMT by T : An anonymous reader suggests that there is a convoluted but possibly cheaper route to an new, unlocked iPhone.
Most phone companies have a stipulation in the contract that forces you to return the phone if you cancel the contract soon after starting it. In this case I would think that time would be about 6 months or so - enough time for them to squeeze out the 600/700 dollar cost.
Maybe but in the case of AT&T they do not:
Cancellations/Early Termination Fee: An Early Termination Fee of $175 may be assessed against you in the event that you terminate your Wireless Service Agreement and/or selected plan before the expiration of its term. For Service activated on or after May 25, 2008, the Early Termination Fee will be reduced by $5.00 for each full month toward your minimum term that you complete. You may cancel your service, for any reason and without incurring the Early Termination Fee, within thirty (30) days of signing your Wireless Service Agreement, PROVIDED, however, that if you cancel service you will remain responsible for any service fees and charges incurred. If you cancel within three (3) days of signing your Wireless Service Agreement, you will be entitled to a refund of your activation fee, if any. If you exercise this option, you may be required to return devices and associated accessories purchased in connection with your Wireless Service Agreement.
So you wait until the 4th day.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
You would need to pay for 1 month of your contract ($70 is the cheapest?), if you cancel before 30 days you have to return the phone. Also, there has been no confirmation of the early termination fee being $175 for the iPhone. (if it were to be $175 you would still end up getting the phone a bit cheaper than going with the no commitment option).
Once you are out of contract, they are required by law to unlock your phone for use on any carrier, so selling a no-contract phone thats locked doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as they'd just have to provide an unlock code at your request anyway. I guess they'll probably do it just to make people who don't know any better use AT&T anyway.
Either way, the price makes buying an unlocked phone absolutely retarded. You pay the $199/$299 and pay the $175 contract early termination fee and save yourself some money. After paying the termination fee, they have to unlock your phone so you can take it where ever you want, sans visual voicemail of course.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You can't buy insurance from the carrier for high dollar phones such as the iPhone. People that buy them will buy another one if it gets stolen ( Well, okay, I'm buying another one to replace my stolen iphone on the 11th ). And its not really profitable for them to charge you a $20 insurance fee for a phone that they actually have to pay for, unlike all the other give-away phones that they don't mind insuraning because they are so cheap that the fee they charge you when you make a claim is more than the phone costs them.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Are the hardware specifications of a cell phone the only relevant thing? Absolutely not. Hardware defines the device's potential, but the device's quality is determined in a large part by its software. And Openmoko Freerunner's software stack is pretty sucky right now.
Right now Freerunner's battery life is something like 5 hours, and there are many other issues.
A great example of why all but a handful of people may prefer an iPhone to a Freerunner is this month's discussion of filesystem images on the mailing list. Apparently there's an FSO image ("make and receive calls. That's about it."), an ASU image ("qtopia apps don't start if I have the SIM in the phone"), a GTK image ("more or less what the phone came preloaded with"), a ScaredyCat image ("mostly works"). This should make it pretty clear that a Freerunner is not a consumer-ready device and is definitely NOT an iPhone equivalent.
A Freerunner should only be purchased by those who are fully prepared to deal with it as a hobby rather than as a consumer-ready phone/PDA. Posts like yours are misleading and do a disservice both to the consumer and to the Openmoko project.
Yup.
Here is Roger's Early Cancellation Fee for the IPhone:
"The ECF is the greater of (ii) $100 or (iii) $20 per month remaining in the service agreement, to a maximum of $400 (plus applicable taxes), and applies on each line in the plan that is terminated."
So waiting a month and then canceling will cost you $700 vs $175 with AT&T
[alk]
Yes, but you'll be paying 800 $Aus (just for the phone) to do so, won't you?
at $880 (which is about $840 USD), that's a heck of a difference from the AT&T price!
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Sorry you're wrong. Insurance is definitely offered on iphones. I guess you don't know what you are talking about or regret not buying the insurance yourself because I have an iphone and I have insurance @ 4.95 a month w AT&T. That's pretty standard for a smartphone. Verizon charged me the same insurance fee when I had a treo.