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Questioning the iPhone scheme

Here's a great question that's apparently being asked by U.S. Senators:

Should AT&T be the only service allowed to sell the iPhone?

I still have a pretty low-end Blackberry that I got for free when I switched services. I know some folks who have iPhones and the consensus seems to be that the phone is terrific but the service (in Greensboro, at least) leaves something to be desired.

It is, indeed, bad enough that an artificial economy of overpriced phones "subsidized" by service companies traps users in long-term contracts and that unlike much of the rest of the world many of our phones don't work universally on any service we choose. But what ticks me off is that even if I laid out the ridiculous cost of an unsubsidized iPhone I couldn't choose to have service on it through any company but AT&T without hacking it.

What do you guys think? Have an iPhone? Love or hate the AT&T service?

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Posted by Joe Killian on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 6:00 am

What do you think?

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snowmentality

June 17, 2009 - 3:09 pm EDT

I love my iPhone, but I definitely thought it was fairer when you could buy the device outright without a contract, and do what you wanted with it. I know AT&T had a cow at the idea of all those unlocked phones, though.

I live in Durham now, but when I lived in Greensboro and had AT&T, the service was okay. It wasn't any better or worse than my friends' service from other companies. Service quality is about the same here in Durham -- not perfect but no worse than anything else.

I think the U.S. cell phone industry as a whole is pretty broken. People are just noticing it because the iPhone is so popular and desired, but there are really no new issues here. You have to hack any phone to unlock it for use on other networks; I don't like it. Phone sales should be separate from cell phone service contract sales, just as I don't have to sign up for Time Warner cable internet to buy a computer.