To paraphrase a common phrase I've seen around here: The "G" in "LTE" stands for "global".
It has been like this for several years and it’s great!
You can pay a pretty low monthly down payment over a period of 36 month.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, I don’t even have to enter into any binding contract for any phone plan to buy the phone this way. And even if I did have to do that the most they are allowed to bind me to is 12 months, by law.
Consumer protection laws in my country are fabulous :)
- oh. I like night time camera from 1K pixel or iPhone
Whatever happened to planning ahead? No wonder things are the way they are.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/19/bank-of-america-nearly-half-...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/52-americans-live-paycheck-pa...
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/goldman-sachs-study-fin...
https://econofact.org/factbrief/is-there-a-consensus-that-a-...
No matter if it's "Nearly half" or 60%, things are clearly far from good for most Americans.
If the point is just that the hedonic treadmill means Americans will continue to be less and less happy as we get more and more wealthy, well, that's the problem we need to fix.
The "free" is just advertising and for people habituated to credit, it's a no-brainer. Pun intended.
Works great, no particular coverage issues, never used enough data to hit any notable throttling.
I’ve read that these virtual networks also get lower prioritization so you can get low bandwidth when the higher tier users are active. Not sure how accurate that is.
Man thinking back, I probably got away with less than 2 dollars a month back in 2006-2010 era.
It is easy to switch between Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile as well. This was helpful for me as all three of the networks normally have one bar or less at my house. T-mobile WiFi calling works more reliably than Verizon.
If you're using an iPhone, buy it from the Apple Store, full stop. No reason not to. If you need financing they have that (ACMI). They also sell older models refurb (like new condition) to save even more.
For a cheap Android (Revvl 60 or whatever), they'll just give you another cheap one next time you switch carriers, right? They are basically e-waste after a year or two and don't get updates.
And basically the only flagship Android widely sold in America is Samsung which is also sold DTC, albeit only online, and sometimes has promos for direct purchase? Maybe not as much financing tho. The other OEMs either don't sell in the US, or have some DTC presence too (ex. OnePlus).
When I graduated from college, a large majority of the recent graduates at my first job had new cars.
I still see this trend - young people with the latest iphone and/or new cars, and not worrying about being tied to payments.
I think this will happen... forever.
If the phone is paid in full, what is the justification for not unlocking it?
In cases of fraud, it creates buffer time for the consumer who’s identity was stolen to notice and notify before the device disappears.
merger conditions.
Here’s another fucked up policy that’s about a year old from T-Mobile: I very rarely financed phones direct through T-Mobile. My 15 pro max will be the last since I had to fight them for a device unlock prior to paying off in full. I would have paid it off in full if they didn’t change their policy to kill bill credits if you do pay early. I threatened them with costco’s 90 day return policy if they didn’t do it since I run dual sim for coverage, they relented.
I am curious though, had I never had the phone unlocked, I wonder if Apple would have swapped in an unlocked board when they did my board swap for RCS issue?
It would be my pleasure to announce to them that the terms of service dictate that the padlocks would never be removed, but the new subscription fees would be announced shortly.
It would be delicious to see such a delightful revenge sink deep into their lives.
Until such time, enjoy our esteem, you scoundrels!
(^1) I wish I wasn't so tempted after ~4 years, but the battery health has dropped to 75% and the performance has suffered dramatically. A new battery is on the table I suppose, but I am split between just putting that money towards a new phone.
Won't help with performance, but I've found that keeping bluetooth and location turned off lets me use the phone for the whole day without needing a recharge. Only thing that eats battery is video calls.
With smartphones however, the game has changed. Apple for example no longer locks their modems at all and instead rely on a software-level check as part of the "activation" process (at first boot where it also gets its client certificates/etc to talk to Apple services) - said activation policy can be changed remotely, and Apple are very cagey about their full capabilities. I have read of some vendors selling iPhones that would be unlocked at first but lock themselves to the first carrier they see.
It's unlikely Apple would ever enforce or change an activation policy on a phone purchased directly from them, so you should be safe. But technically, it's up to the phone manufacturer. I am not sure what the Android situation is in comparison.
Yeah, there's no official documentation, but that's how the Best Buy ones are. I've seen it called "US Reseller Flex" and "SIM Out" policies. There are some shady websites that have a GSX login that will report the policy name, anti theft lock status, and service history if you put in the IMEI. The intent is to prevent having to keep separate stocks of identical hardware pre-assigned to each carrier you sell for.
IIRC, Best Buy isn't supposed to sell you a phone without at least adding it to an existing carrier account. They act as an agent of the carrier, not selling the phone standalone like Apple does. It's possible that someone could then resell it while in-box as a scam, but that's not what Apple/carrier intended.
If you have root, you can easily unlock the modem and keep it unlocked.
(I wonder if this unlocking policy will retroactively apply to the locked Striaght Talk phone I bought back in October.)
They aren't going to lose their money.
The long locking-period is just a way to impose a stealthy and anti-competitive switching-cost onto consumers, denying them the right to use the things they own.
It's also an example of how just because one doesn't care about politics... doesn't mean it won't "care" about you.
> While the Biden-era FCC’s leadership criticized yearlong locking periods and proposed a 60-day unlocking requirement for all carriers, the Trump FCC appears likely to write a new industry-wide standard that would be welcomed by large mobile carriers.
On Mint your traffic is routed with lower priority than T-Mobile's main customers. In practice, I have only experienced this at busy airports and an MLB game - where basically service dropped to near zero. This is in the Boston area. Obviously not ideal if you're in those conditions regularly. Otherwise it's been awesome.
If the service is of interest my referral code is below. It gets you a $15 renewal credit for joining. Will the winds of votes love or hate a referral code? Who knows! apologies if I'm out of bounds. (I don't understand why it's out of bounds)
I'm part of the problem. But I won't be (as much) after I get a used one and put Graphene OS on it.
Can you point me to anywhere documenting your claim? That would definitely be a new low if true, but I really don’t think that’s how it works.
The gist is that it allows a third-party seller to stock a bunch of identical, not-yet-locked phones and offer a choice of carrier plans. The phone binds to whichever carrier the user first activated on.
So if you’re buying a phone, verify it is not one of these units.