"the group to charge around £25" See Palm, you're giving money away. Imagine if you sell them unlocked in the first place yourself for a bit of extra money, thus keeping the money yourself.
@pika2000 apparently you fail to understand how things work, so let me give you a simple explanation. The network and cell phone manifacturer come to an agreement on locking the phone to the network for several reasons. Both the network and manufacturer of the phone know that a phone locked to a network is worth more to that network in terms of profit potential than one unlocked because even after a contract is up the consumer has invested a lot of money into the phone, so has a decent chance of continuing to use it, and if they can only use it on that network they will. If they wre to sell them unlocked, they would be inevitably more expensive than locked because the network doesn't have that potential to continue to profit from that phone. So instead of getting the phone for $100 on a two year plan, the network would have to increase the initial cost of the phone substantially. Palm isn't giving anything away by allowing networks to lock the phones to themselves, they are making the purchase of the new phone more affordable for the consumer. For many, the initial cost of a phone is enough for a consumer to choose a different phone. (the exception seems to be the iphone, which people will buy for $200 on a three year data plan)
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"the group to charge around £25"
See Palm, you're giving money away. Imagine if you sell them unlocked in the first place yourself for a bit of extra money, thus keeping the money yourself.
@pika2000
apparently you fail to understand how things work, so let me give you a simple explanation. The network and cell phone manifacturer come
to an agreement on locking the phone to the network for several reasons. Both the network and manufacturer of the phone know that a phone locked to a network is worth more to that network in terms of profit potential than one unlocked because even after a contract is up the consumer has invested a lot of money into the phone, so has a decent chance of continuing to use it, and if they can only use it on that network they will. If they wre to sell them unlocked, they would be inevitably more expensive than locked because the network doesn't have that potential to continue to profit from that phone. So instead of getting the phone for $100 on a two year plan, the network would have to increase the initial cost of the phone substantially. Palm isn't giving anything away by allowing networks to lock the phones to themselves, they are making the purchase of the new phone more affordable for the consumer. For many, the initial cost of a phone is enough for a consumer to choose a different phone. (the exception seems to be the iphone, which people will buy for $200 on a three year data plan)