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AT&T Boosts 'Early Upgrade' iPhone Pricing by $50

If the AT&T + T-Mobile acquisition/merger goes through, the FCC and FTC should just close up shop and take whatever money they use to run those government bodies and return them to the tax payers. I mean, seriously, what's the point?
 
they'll let people upgrade at the subsidized iphone price (with a new 2-yr deal) because they'll see a mass exodus of subs if they don't.

it will all work out.
 
bigjohn said:
they'll let people upgrade at the subsidized iphone price (with a new 2-yr deal) because they'll see a mass exodus of subs if they don't.

it will all work out.
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there was supposed to be a mass exodus when the Verizon iPhone was reeased as well/ It was not as many as the analysts expected. I doubt there will be a mass exodus for this either becasue the majority of people are sheep. They might get mad for a moment, but eventually they will justify staying and that will be it. Making a stand is hard, conforming is easy.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
I love how in our industry, when we raise a price, we have to justify it to the customer start to finish, across every presence imaginable, media, events, etc... cost of materials, availability during wartime, tighter environmental standards, labor cost increase, having not made an adjustment to the price in nearly a decade despite inflation and other factors... before we'll be able to make a 5% increase to the price and not lose all our customers.

It must be nice to be a telecom company and just toss out huge arbitrary pricing changes without any justification.
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Wow, what industry are YOU in? Most industries don't have to explain anything to customers/clients especially when prices have remained stable for as long as you claim. 🙄
 
jfyrfytr25 said:
there was supposed to be a mass exodus when the Verizon iPhone was reeased as well/ It was not as many as the analysts expected. I doubt there will be a mass exodus for this either becasue the majority of people are sheep. They might get mad for a moment, but eventually they will justify staying and that will be it. Making a stand is hard, conforming is easy.
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There may not be a "mass exodus" but you can rest assured that my family (4 of us) will be switching to Verizon and joining my Dad (who currently is with Verizon) as of July 1st. 😀
 
Cynicalone said:
So what is the early upgrade price on Verizon?
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Unless I am mistaken you cannot do early upgrade with Verizon. I thought that you had to wait until like 20 of your 24 months were up otherwise it was full retail price.

AT&T I think is just trying to make sure that people don't purchase phone, cancel and make money selling to eBay
 
Who needs a new iphone every year? Let alone every 2 years? I just got an iphone 4 and it's so much more advanced than certainly any phone that I've ever had (and probably more advanced than most phones out there), that I don't see anyone needing to replace it ever unless it brakes.
 
I don't believe in paying big money for early upgrades. I wanted the 3gs when it came out but I forced myself to wait. I ended up with a new iphone 4.
 
And so how is merging with T-Mobile going to open up choice, provide more competition and benefit customers? Sounds like they are just getting an early start on price gouging here.

Not only should the merger be rejected but AT&T should be broken into about 5 separate companies.
 
I bet they did this 1) because they can and 2) to stop people from upgrading early and reselling the phones for profit
 
jrb363 said:
There may not be a "mass exodus" but you can rest assured that my family (4 of us) will be switching to Verizon and joining my Dad (who currently is with Verizon) as of July 1st. 😀
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Enjoy your CDMA. "Let me check, gotta call you back". 😉
 
I'm not sure why people are all out of sorts with this increase. Basically it seems people are mad that it will cost them more to end a contract early? Is upgrading before the end of two years really that important?

Maybe I'm just odd, but two years with a product really isn't all that long.
 
Verizon got rid of their annual upgrade entirely recently. Good ole competition.

And the Thunderbolt has voice+data at the same time, for the poster above.
 
DrewDaHilp1 said:
Price when I sell my current iPhone 4 just went up 50 bucks.
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Exactly. Whenever I've upgraded my iPhone early, I always recoup nearly 100% of the upgrade cost by selling the old iPhone on Craigslist. This change doesn't mean much to me.

And not sure why everyone hates AT&T. I live in Boston...I always have 4+ bars of service. I pay my bill online every month with zero problems. Not sure what the big deal is...
 
Chupa Chupa said:
This is rather amusing. People rush out to buy cheesy $30 iPhone Bumpers that cost .10 to make or some other overpriced case and have no issue. Many even buy multiples before they decide on one.

But ATT raises the cost of a early upgrade phone by $50 and people go bonkers.

1) It's an early upgrade. Do you really need to upgrade your phone sooner than every 18 months? If you do, that is your decision as a consumer. You certainly have no God given right to a cheap upgrade though. Stop whining.

2) Inflation is here. Deal with it. Have you been to the grocery store lately? It's the price we pay when the Fed prints money like Chinese knock-offs.

3) Last I checked the government enacts laws regarding the cell phone industry and also regulates the frequencies. There has never been anything stopping either congress or the executive branch or independent commissions from imposing rules to require cellcos to unlock phones after x months of service or to require them to sell unlocked phones.
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+1

So true.

People sure do whine a lot.
 
No sir, I don't like it. No matter how you slice it, prices going up with competition going down (T-Mo buyout) only means customer gets screwed. But more importantly, I see this as a hedge for Ma Bell. (Roughly) six months prior to VZW iPhone availability/announcement, ATT hiked up ETFs. Now this. Could be that the upcoming iPhone 5 is yet another killer product in that such a move would be a stop-gap for would-be early upgraders and ATT wanting to offset that subsidy. If timing of this were an indicator like the ETFs in relation to VZW iPhone, six months from now would be quasi-in-line with rumored iPhone 5 release.
 
Google Voice!

This is another reason why I will likely just transfer my number to Google Voice for $20 + cancellation fees without losing my number. Currently my cost would be about $100 total for the change on top of a contract price of $299 (for 32GB model), so $399 instead of $549.
 
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