carrier "subsidy" [LWN.net]

carrier "subsidy"

Posted Jan 30, 2014 22:44 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
In reply to: carrier "subsidy" by khim
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

You're wrong about the "same price". The US carriers of course offer a far lower price for someone who doesn't want the carrier to supply a phone - but they call this a "discount" because that sounds better than admitting the phones cost money. $15-20 "discount" per month is not unusual although the terms vary, that's $360 to $480 over the course of the typical 24 month contract you'd be signing to get your "free" phone.

In the EU probably a regulator would have told them to stop the "discount" bullshit years ago, but this is the US we're talking about.

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carrier "subsidy"

Posted Jan 30, 2014 22:58 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

>You're wrong about the "same price".
Not really. A couple of years ago AT&T was not offering any discount for bring-your-own devices. Has the situation changed?

carrier "subsidy"

Posted Jan 31, 2014 0:05 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

not at AT&T

but at T-mobile and smaller companies it has.

carrier "subsidy"

Posted Jan 31, 2014 11:30 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (1 responses)

I am not a US resident, so it's not easy for me to actually walk through all the steps to buy service. But AT&T certainly advertises a $15 "discount".

It's hard to tell when this actually began, their "pay-for-the-phone separately" approach copying T-mobile was launched late last year, and the discount applies to people doing that too (because again, it's not really a "discount" it's just the real price without the cost of your "subsidised" phone) but it may have existed for a lot longer, that's just when they last announced a change to it.

It is (inevitably for the US carriers) more complicated than a straight $15, that's just the simple case where you have a phone and want service and keep saying "No" as they offer to pile on a tablet, a wireless dongle, international calling packages, a landline, streaming music, a sheepdog, the concept of marital fidelity, and whatever else they're selling today.

carrier "subsidy"

Posted Jan 31, 2014 20:55 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

they may have just changed this, but in October the local stores I spoke to would not offer any discount for me bringing my own phone.