@DaveBach

I'm probably a feeding the troll here, but the "value" of those phones is just a stupid figure made up by AT&T. Do you seriously think a phone should cost more than a MacBook?

@skotm

If the carriers are supposedly only recouping costs of the phone by including the price in the contract, then the carriers really shouldn't have a problem selling the phone at full price and then charging less for the service.

Except they do have a problem, as they are making more than enough to cover the phone's cost. Do you really think a 3GS should 'cost' $700, when the iPod Touch 32GB is $300, and pretty much the only difference is a camera, cell radio, and plastic back?

You can get a 3GS from AT&T with the $30 data plan and the cheapest voice (450 min) and messaging (200) plan for ~$75/month, which equates to $1800 over 2 years, not including taxes or whatever other fees.

If you buy a 3GS for $700 unsubsidized, I think you should then be able to pay AT&T $1100 over 2 years, or only about $46 a month, as they aren't subsidizing anything.

I think many people would gladly pay the full price for a phone and have a much cheaper non-contract plan to go with it, somewhat like what T-Mobile is doing with it's Even More Plus.

@coolpal

Yeah, who knows? In a couple years new "3DTVs" could be common and everyone will be talking about how crappy our current HDTVs are/were.

While it appears they may be increasing prices, they also seem to be actually *upgrading* their network as well. Is everyone ignoring the HSPA upgrade they are rolling out?

I'm actually currently using a Verizon dumbphone, and reading the FCC paper, I'm glad they are also asking about that ridiculous $1.99 fee if you accidentally press anything that uses even 1kb of data. They round data charges up to the next MB so pressing "Mobile Web" and exiting out after a split second automatically charges you 1MB of data. Verizon's excuse is "The customer should have disabled the feature by calling our Customer Service center." Lame.

@John H

That's the excuse the carriers give you when you complain about separate pricing. I'm NOT saying it isn't true, but the carriers always seem to conjure up some semi-valid excuse for increasing fees.

LOLWTFBBQ.

E. N. G. A. D. G. E. T.

Over 9000!

Little sister might like this.