

Googlephone No Match for Kafkaesque Carriers - cwan
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/kafka-nexus-one

======
semanticist
I signed up for a SIM-only 30 day rolling contract with T-Mobile (UK)
yesterday to stick in my unlocked iPhone.

For 600 minutes, 'unlimited' SMS text messages and 'unlimited' internet, I'm
paying £20 a month.

I think the problem in the US is the lack of real competition. The GSM/CDMA
thing splits the market and you just don't have enough players. The whole
situation is very different in Europe.

~~~
warfangle
(for comparison, my AT&T contract for 600 minutes, 300 text messages,
"unlimited" 3g, costs - after taxes - approximately $110/mo)

------
henrikschroder
I don't understand the article. I understand that the US mobile phone market
is broken because there is too little competition between carriers, but in
what way are the contracts perpetual?

You can get a cheaper plan if you extend your contract with two years, that's
fair, the same kind of deals are common in Europe as well, but that only leads
to perpetual contracts if you absolutely have to switch phones more often than
every two years, right? So by being less tech-horny and waiting until your
contract has expired, you will be free to switch provider freely, right?

And what's stopping people from always buying the phones full-price and
refusing to bind their contracts? Are the talk and data-rates suddenly that
much higher? Are people not valuing the freedom to switch more than saving a
few percent on the rates?

Why are the US phone consumers consistently making the choice to bind
themselves to a provider?

~~~
wmf
If every year you break your phone and extend your contract by two years, it
is effectively perpetual. I don't know how often this happens in reality,
though.

 _And what's stopping people from always buying the phones full-price and
refusing to bind their contracts?_

You can't buy a full-priced phone in any US store, and you have to go looking
for them on the Internet. And if you do buy an unsubsidized phone, your
service plan won't be any cheaper (except, very recently, T-Mobile).

~~~
portman
"You can't buy a full-priced phone in any US store"

Actually, I always buy full-priced phones in US stores. In reverse
chronological order:

\- Motorola Droid purchased in a Verizon store for $579 \- G1 purchased in a
T-Mobile store for $499 \- HTC Shadow purchased in a T-Mobile store for $449
\- Sidekick (forget which one) purchased in a T-Mobile store for about $500

Every carrier lets you buy an unsubsidized phone. It's really not hard. It's
just that Americans don't do it, for some reason.

------
jokull
I have a pay-as-you-go and a Nexus One in the UK. I pay £5 pounds for 30 days
of unmetered 3G.

~~~
SandB0x
Who is this with?

~~~
jokull
T-Mobile (they have a 3G "booster" - just text them to get the offer)

------
swolchok
I bailed out of the cellphone market after my last contract expired. I'm on
Skype Out ($3/mo) + Google Voice (incoming calls go to voicemail and I call
them back) + iPod Touch until a compelling reason to enter the market again
shows up. Ideally, I'll just get a better iPod Touch and continue to rely on
"good enough" WiFi coverage in my area (University WiFi + whatever I can pick
up from restuarants/bars while I'm out). I would _like_ to be connected to the
phone network 24/7, but it's not worth a 10x increase in price.

~~~
rw
That's a cool workaround, but is an exta $27/month actually unjustified? How
much time is lost when people are trying to contact you, and can't, or vice
versa?

~~~
swolchok
During my typical day, 0 people attempt to contact me by phone, and I spend
almost all the time bathed in wireless connectivity. I am out of touch for a
total of 40 minutes when I am walking to or from work, and perhaps another
half hour when I am off campus for dinner.

I did have an incident very recently when I traveled to a part of campus I
don't normally frequent and couldn't find an open access point so that I could
request entry to the building. I lost at most half an hour finding an access
point nearby, and in the future I can walk directly to the AP if the need
arises, so it was a one-time cost.

There is also significant one-time savings from an iPod vs. a smartphone, to
the tune of $200-$300.

------
davidw
Can you get pay as you go sim cards in the US? They're pretty common here in
Italy and are a decent way of not getting too deeply involved with the
carriers.

~~~
ben1040
We have pay-as-you-go in the US, but not in the same way as it is in Europe
and Asia. Here, convenience stores don't sell loose SIM cards that you can
simply pop into your own phone and add whatever value you'd like.

The US carriers seem to market PAYG plans toward low-income customers who (in
the carriers' eyes) would not be able to pay for monthly post-paid service
plans. Thus they bundle the plans with cheap feature-low phones.

The carriers also don't allow smartphones to be activated on PAYG plans,
instead requiring you to buy into an expensive (and profitable, for the
carrier) data package.

~~~
tomsaffell
I have a TMobile PAYG. You can get the SIM from TMobile for $7 (from the
store). It costs ~$0.10 / minute to talk (if you buy credit in $50 chunks).
You can top-up directly from the phone with a credit/debit card, or on the
web, or using a top-up card from a TMobile store - it's really easy,
especially doing it from the phone. Personally, I don't give a hoot that they
are marketed towards low income customers.

The thing that totally sucks in the US market is the lack of PAYG _data_
plans, or for that matter the price of contract plans for _data only_. They 3x
the price of Europe.

------
sker
Americans complain just too much about their mobile carriers. You guys need to
come to peace with the fact that you are below East Asia and Western Europe in
mobile services and internet speeds.

You are still better positioned than 80% of the world, which includes Latin
America, Africa, West Asia, Middle East and some other countries. You just
can't have everything. _sigh_

~~~
enneff
"Americans complain just too much about their mobile carriers."

So the best way to improve things is to be quiet and accept it? What are you
saying?

