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I know the mobile phone plans are quite cheap / competitive in Europe compared to the US. Part of the European advantage for the carriers is that there is high population density, compared to the US.

I’m talking about Canada, which is much less densely populated than the US.
 
ther thing, I'm genuinely curious, in Europe, where phones come unlocked... you're saying you can get free / highly discounted phones, does this include the latest iPhone generations? Or are these older phones?

In Canada, where phones come unlocked, a quick search right now I found all of iPhone 16 generation is about half price of full retail cost (paid in monthly instalments, so $0 up front cost)

The way this works, instead of the phone being locked, is that you sign a 2 year service contract, if you want to leave the contract you pay the remaining balance of the full retail price of the phone
 
In order to understand what the differences are between the US issues discussed here and the UK, I visited a mobile network’s site.

I had hoped to visit the site and see how much an iPhone would cost through them - including usage costs - versus buying from Apple and getting what I see as the best value package which works for me.

I left utterly confused by the site which offered at least eight packages - many just marginally different. The apparent saving on a standard iPhone 16 was just over £40 (£757.62 against Apple's £799) . Much of that could be taken away by not one but two planned price increases within the contract period! Or the payments for phone and plan for just one month.

There is no way I could end up paying less than using my standard approach - buy from Apple and get a separate lower-cost plan. If I wanted to spread payments, I'd probably use a credit card. If nothing else, it is easy to reduce the amount owing at any time.

Further, I can do that and also get a multi-network SIM yet still pay less.
 
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