This will be great for the larger market. And it kind of opens the door towards Apple selling cheaper iPhone models as “go” phones.  I like it.

But in general all cell providers in the U.S. can ram it up their ass.

I would imagine that the service providers would say you’re subsidizing the phone over the course of your contract if you sign on for two years. But then why doesn’t the “subsidy” ever end and your plan get cheaper?

That would encourage people to keep their phones for more than two years instead of buying a new one and agreeing to a new two-year contract.

To satisfy your personal understanding of “lacking any limitations” would require the phone be able to download an infinite amount of data instantaneously.  Anything else would be limited.  As the laws of physics prevent that from ever happening, you probably need to rethink your definition of “unlimited” in relation to cell phone plans.

This is always the rub, and perfectly encapsulates the Sam Vimes Boots Theory of Economic Injustice:

A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. [...]

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

There are plenty of things that pay for themselves if you have the money to pay for them. Owning a home. Better insulation. Solar panels. Better quality clothing or gadgets. Energy-efficient cars. But all of these things are available only to the folks with the capital.

Optimus V running Ice Cream Sandwich 

Also, until fairly recently, phones were locked to a particular carrier, and couldn’t be switched. Some still operate this way. VirginMobile in fact doesn’t allow you to use a phone that’s not been set up for their network. They (like most CDMA carriers) don’t use SIM cards, so the EISN of the phone is what tells them if you’re kosher or not on their network. Changing or spoofing that EISN is illegal.

Historically, the prepaid MVNO’s and such here have offered ‘cheaper’ phones and lower priced plans as they were considered the low-cost option, if you wanted a really nice phone you were paying the higher prices. Customers are just now getting the better phone option.

Perhaps our market is just more competitive (or rather, less anti-competitive)? The big providers normally offer a very wide range of products for people without contracts and leave you to swap around purely to keep your business.

So it does go down, you just have to ask. For example, my girlfriend phoned her company to cancel and they reduced her monthly fee to £3 from £15 and actually increased the amount of data she was allowed.

I bought my iPhone straight from Apple for about £500, and use a contractless MVNO (Giffgaff). Because nobody lent me any money to buy the phone, I save a bundle over the whole 2 years.

I would imagine that the service providers would say you’re subsidizing the phone over the course of your contract if you sign on for two years. But then why doesn’t the “subsidy” ever end and your plan get cheaper? Have the cell providers ever spoken to that point?

Regarding this offer in particular – I own an iPhone that I bought outright, unlocked, straight from Apple, simply because it’s cheaper for me to use an MVNO (I use Giffgaff – actually unlimited texts and data for £10 a month as long as you don’t use tethering or whatever. I use about 3.5GB a month) and buy the handset than pay ~£100 for the phone and £35 a month for two years, for less minutes, texts and data. Does Apple not let you buy the phone straight from them in the US?