I don’t own a smartphone yet. That’s doesn’t mean they don’t intrigue me greatly. But the cold hard fact is the carriers make you pay a lot of money to own a smartphone. Personally, I’d like to own a smartphone without a data plan. I have WiFi here at the house and out an about there are plenty of hotspots to latch onto.
But carriers won’t let me do that. They require a data plan with your smartphone purchase. That’s only 1 of a number of examples of carriers behaving badly. The simple fact is they are bithaulers. That is, their service is really just a trumped up ISP at this point. But they don’t want people to know that, or think about that. They just want money once for moving voice bits over their pipeline, and a second time for moving data over their pipeline.
Wired has yet another example of carriers behaving badly. While I wouldn’t be using Google wallet now if I was a smartphone user, I think people should be allowed to do so if they choose. The convenience of the system is certainly alluring. But rather than compete in the “digital wallet” market, the carriers are using there gate-keeper position regarding phones in an anti-competitive manner.
It’s crap like this that give people little sympathy for the carriers.
2 replies on “Carriers Behaving Badly”
… which is why I just use a TracPhone and the iTouch …
Check the Consumer Reports rating of cell phones – it was interesting.
If I can’t wait until I have access to my computer, then it isn’t that important to begin with ! !
Buy an unlocked phone, they are more expensive, but you can activate them however you see fit, with whoever you see fit.