paullywise wrote:
Wow, i'm surprised you find this thread helpful! I am the original poster, and have given up on it. No one seems to be able to engage the question or topic, instead they feel compelled to keep reiterating the contract rules. We can find the rules documented and don't need them repeated. There is a lot of acceptance of 'the way things are' without thinking of the moral implications of money and ownership.
one poster said something like 'it's just the way they do it,' and another even said we're lucky if they unlock a phone at all! This is false, and the kind of mentality that allow companies to hold more control than they should. Let me give an example:
John bought an iphone 4s with a two year contract with At&t. John is under contract to pay the At&t service for two years, this subsidizes the phone At&t brokered. Six months down the line, John hits some hard times financially and needs to find some extra money to pay his medical bills. It is true that his mobile plan with At&t is not something he could change - John is in a contract with At&t, so he either has to continue to pay or pay the early termination fee -- it's how it is - no way around it. There is no problem here because John agreed to two years of service to subsidize his iphone. BUT, if John wanted to sell his iphone 4s to someone else for the money to pay his other bills, he can't do that, because the iphone 4s is locked to John and his At&t account.
The problem is, even though At&t is getting all the money they require (and much more) to cover the cost of the iphone with two years of John's paments, John still doesn't have the freedom or control to do what he wants with the device that he owns. My point is: it's not illegal to drop the phone in the toilet rendering it useless, so why is it illegal to give away or sell the phone? either way John isn't using the phone, and either way John still has to make all his payments.
Thank you for keeping your cool.
Well. Don't you think we should all go by AT&T's Motto: Rethink Possible, I would think that it would be possible to offer unlocked phones but at a higher price than the regular $199 contract price for iPhone or whatever it is, depending on the storage.
If I deduct from $650 the $325 ETF and the $199 contract price, I get $125. I suspect that AT&T would have some loss in theory but it probably depends on their profit margin. So to control loss, AT&T offered only locked phones, so I guess.
