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| Reduced carrier subsidies increase sales of separate smartphones |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-17 22:48:46 |
| I always see The Netherlands - my home country - as a small, easily graspable version of other, larger and more important western countries and even the west as a whole. In light of this, Tweakers.net's Arnoud Wokke points to a very interesting report about the Dutch telecommunications market. This reports notes a trend that, if present in the rest of the world, could have serious effects for phone makers. |
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| I believe you might be right |
| By JoshuaS on 2012-08-18 08:30:27 |
|
The future you described is the past and present here in Belgium. And you can see it's effects: only spoiled rich kids and wealthy businessmen own an iPhone or a high-end Android smartphone. The rest of us uses budget phones instead. On a side note: combined phone and SIM-card subscriptions do exist here, but they're not very popular for some weird reason. |
 - Score: 4 |
| Hurray for SIM! |
| By Veto on 2012-08-18 10:48:26 |
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In Denmark it has for several years been normal to buy phones without subscription. Especially since the period of subscriber lock-in was reduced to a maximum of 6 months. This made it difficult for the carriers to charge a subscription premium, as people will then switch to a cheaper SIM-only subscription after the 6 months. All this creates a more healthy market with more choice for us consumers. Anyway all this is only possible because the GSM people mandated the use of the SIM card back then, making it possible to switch your phone between carriers. It is a wonder the SIM card still lives on! |
| - Score: 3 |
| Same thing in Finland |
| By SJ87 on 2012-08-18 10:50:38 |
|
A couple years back I got a Nokia C5-00 phone for 3 €/mo with a two-year contract. That means the phone will cost me 72 euros in total, while the retail price at the time was twice that. I think the fee for the telephone line is 1 €/mo, which means the total price for the deal will be about 100 euros. That doesn't include any texting nor talk time, though, but I was granted a free 512 kbps 3G internet connection because I have a wired broadband connection from the same company. Currently the operators are introducing schemes in which the customer would pay 50-75 % of the retail price beforehand. They do still offer the low-priced options aswell, though the prices have gone up maybe about 30 % during the two years of time. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Same thing in France |
| By renox on 2012-08-18 12:52:24 |
| Due to the arrival of a new telecom provider (Free) which no phone bundling at first so the cost of the phone bundling is now shown in cost comparison. |
| - Score: 4 |
| The one and only good thing about HP cocking up webOS.. |
| By Xeron on 2012-08-18 13:16:56 |
|
The phones are cheap on eBay. My wife's contract ended early this year for her iPhone 3GS, and we worked out that all-in it had cost over £1000 for the phone and two years service. So she bought an HP Veer for £90 and got a £7 a month contract. Thats just £258 for a phone that she prefers to the iPhone and 2 years contract. My Palm Pre contract ended around the same time. My total over 2 years was £840. I bought an HP Pre 3 for £120 (including touchstone charging stand), and got an £11 a month sim-only contract. Thats £384 for a significant upgrade (i love this phone) including 2 years service! Edited 2012-08-18 13:17 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: multiplr price points |
| By tonny on 2012-08-18 14:48:14 |
|
Indonesia. Same here. And I won't go for high-end phone, cause it's overpriced. When I want to buy high-end phone, then my choice is absolutely: xiaomi mi one. :) |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Same thing in France |
| By spiderman on 2012-08-18 16:26:54 |
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The french market is very different now than it was 6 months ago indeed. Currently, the people with a subsidized phone are those who are stuck in a contract since before the arrival of free. New contracts are more often without a phone than with a phone. I was a bouygues customer with a 2 years contract when free entered the market. I just called Bouygues and asked what they would do with my overpriced contract. Result: they migrated the contract to B&YOU for free. So now I'm no more tied to my 2 years contract and I won't pay for my subsidized phone. I can even freely move to free if I want to. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Maturing Tech |
| By demosthenese on 2012-08-18 17:00:51 |
| With each generation of phone, there are fewer and fewer compelling reasons to upgrade the hardware. I plan on keeping my current phone (Sony xperia arc) and switching to a cheaper sim only plan for my next contract. I'm sure others doing the same is one reason for more people going sim only. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Tmobile in the USA |
| By Bill Shooter of Bul on 2012-08-18 18:24:21 |
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I'm not sure if they still do but they used to offer subsidy less plans. The problem was that it was more expensive to buy phones with no subsidy and subscribe to the plan, then it was to buy the subsided phone and the higher per month plan over the life of the contract. Right now I'm kind of off contract, I will end up buying a new subsided phone just so the phone company isn't make more money than they should off of me. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Tmobile in the USA |
| By bhtooefr on 2012-08-19 03:25:05 |
| For what it's worth, one thing that carriers here (in the US) sometimes do is tie the subsidized phone upgrades to forced plan "upgrades" (to capped, more expensive data). So, it can be beneficial to buy the phone from a third-party (harder for CDMA phones, but possible) at full price, then activate it (for CDMA) or insert the SIM. |
| - Score: 2 |
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