on T-mo USA, don't hate, appreciate...
First of all, it will take more than a couple months to justify paying all the phone cost upfront. But in general you are correct.
Second, the US market doesn't work that way. Our tongues drop back in our throat when we see a $300 sticker price let alone $500-$600. The subsidized "cheap" phone is too engrained and we pay way too much over the contract length. But then b!tch about being locked in to a contract.
Just because other people in the US are that way, doesn't mean everybody is that way. If the carriers would offer a cheaper plan for people who bring their own phones, then more people would start buying phones outright.
Carriers should sell the service, not the device. Thats why all carriers should have been GSM from the getgo in the US.
I can easily afford a unlocked phone and ATT's cost. I just don't see why I should pay $2400 for my usage. It's ridiculous. I use less than 450 min, hate texting so I have 10 texts a month, never ever listen to internet radio or stream video, use occasional email (have wifi at work and home). Adding the horrible coverage of ATT makes it not worth the $2400 over two years.
Ain't happening. Virgin, Boost, MetroPCS. They are based on the premise that you buy your phone outright. How many of their customers would buy the iPhone4 for $549? So no, won't happen until a lower tier iPhone can be had for $299. Which is probably a couple of years out and by that time will be too late to matter for those carriers.
I would, for a 4S.
So would I. The problem is, and you can refute this, that Virgin Mobile's target audience is not people who will pay that much for a phone.
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In a contract you pay the phone cost over 18/24 months,
In SIM-only you pay the phone cost in one go.
For PAYG/SIM Only you only end up paying slightly more
It may look like we pay loads for phones, but we get cheaper tarriffs
Although on long term contracts the upfront cost is cheap, the carriers will still unlock your Phone quite easily
Whoa, there pardner. There are a lot of prepaid users just like me. In a month I talk less than 300 minutes, send fewer than 100 texts and don't watch streaming video on my phone, rather use the internet simply for looking up info on a casual basis. For doing that, I see no point in spending $2400 every two years when I can spend $600 instead. Even by buying a new iPhone I'd still pay less than half of someone on a contract.
Prepaid iPhones will totally take off in the US once Apple allows it.
Yep. Prepaid carriers just need to paint that bigger picture of overall savings over the life of the phone / plan.
Tasset, just because YOU wouldn't want to buy an unlocked iPhone, doesn't mean others aren't willing to do so as evidenced above.
As some of these commenters have already pointed out USA consumers need to consider the "bigger picture" of the cost structure of what they're actually paying for (and thus the "value" of what they're actually receiving in return) instead of reacting knee-jerk to the upfront costs of a potential service plan.
To help put this into perspective consider this:
Typically a business will pass on material costs that augment their services to the customer. Over a 2 year phone contract an iPhone 4S
(16GB) costs around $18.75 a month
($199 up front, the remaining $450 recouped by the monthly phone plan fees), which is part of the $75-85 for voice, text and data services you will pay on average per month
(for a low tier plan), not including the 15% on top of this
($88-$95 respectively) of FCC taxes of course. And don't be fooled, just because you're only paying $199 upfront for the phone
on contract doesn't mean that you're not paying for the full $649 cost of the handset over this time period because in fact you are. So "subsidized" is a marketing tactic, right or wrong, to lure in customers who would otherwise bulk at paying for a phone handset outright and instead agree to a monthly contract for at least 2 years to "feel better" about paying for the phone of their choice. Not surprisingly, this is how the big telecoms ensure a steady revenue stream for themselves by locking customers in.
However,
if you were to consider non-contract options, in this case with T-Mobile, things look more interesting, especially where overall value and costs are concerned. If you are willing to buy an unlocked iPhone for $649 upfront, then you have two phone service options with T-Mobile: either a true "pay-as-you-go" plan or one of their tiered monthly "non-contract plan pre-paid". Either way, you can
SAVE MORE MONEY with this set-up, but of course the price is 2G/EDGE speeds for your iPhone data plan, if any. But if you're not a big user of the internet or are content with using the iPhone's WiFi setup then it's not a big issue. Their PAYG plans offers people the most flexibility
(where voice and text usage are concerned) and let's say you only need to spend around $400 a year for your PAYG voice & text service
(which is reasonable for non-heavy users) then that's $800 over two years. Now add the cost of the unlocked iPhone to that and you get to about $1,500 in total service cost over 2 years. The low tiered plans offered by AT&T/Sprint/Verizon average about $2,400 over the same 24 month period, including the cost of the iPhone.
That's at least $900 saved ($450 a year) or 35% less spent over using the big three's standard rates, which is nothing to sneeze at cost-wise.
So the only real caveats with using an iPhone on T-Mobile currently are these:
1) can you live with 2G/EDGE data speeds?
2) would you be content on using the built-in WiFi for most, if not all, of your data/streaming/internet usage?
3) are you not going to bulk at the $649 upfront price for the phone you actually want?
4) your voice/text usage is not that big to begin with?
If one can honestly answer "yes" to all four of those above bullet points, then why not consider paying for an unlocked iPhone? Especially when the cost savings over two years** is substantially better??? This is more food for thought than anything else, everyone has different needs in general, but let's dispel this idea that T-Mobile is an inferior plan alternative because in reality
it's actually a very good one to potentially utilize, especially if you're a non-heavy phone/text user but still want a quality smartphone loaded with good features.
**just FYI, if you're worried about damaging your iPhone and having it serviced, the carriers don't deal with this for you, rather this is where AppleCare comes in, and specially AppleCare+ looks to be of better value, especially if you're considering being "pre-paid" with an unlocked iPhone.
