

Time Bombs - taylorwc
http://www.marco.org/4295159845

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jdietrich
Here in the UK, as in much of Europe, prepaid mobile tariffs are very much
more popular than in the US. You can buy pretty much any handset sim-free, or
slightly subsidised as a prepaid handset locked to a network. Any of our five
networks (plus several tenant networks) will offer any of their monthly
tariffs at a heavily discounted rate if you don't take a subsidised handset.

An iPhone 4 costs £500 ($800) as a prepaid handset. Capable Android handsets
from the likes of ZTE and Huawei can be bought for less than £100. A mid-range
Samsung or HTC handset can be had on an 18-month contract at half the cost of
an iPhone.

By global standards, the US market is profoundly weird. There's an effective
duopoly, the market accepts carrier lock-in and very high monthly charges, the
market still hasn't standardised on GSM and all manner of other things largely
unique to the US. American customers are uniquely price insensitive because
the market has contrived to conceal the actual cost of both hardware and
services through bundling.

Apple _might_ secure a solid market in the US and I'm sure that will be highly
lucrative, but for the other 4.6 billion mobile phone users, I think the
Microsoft vs Apple analogy is very apt indeed.

