A thought about different carriers

mikeymoves

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Okay, we know that Cingular is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone. NO WHERE does it say that phones have a subsidy lock. Dollars to Doughnuts that you can pluck out your cingular sim and put a t-mobile sim in that bad boy. Of course, there will be no way of getting the phone without a 2 year contract from Cingular, but I bet you will be able to swap out the sim. I believe this for two reasons:

1. I find it hard to believe that a phone build on apple OS X would allow programming that would "lock" the phone to a particular carrier. Believe me, when that multiyear (hmmm, is it 2???) exclusive contract is up, you can bet your *** that Apple is going to offer this sucker to anyone willing to pony up the cash

2. While the price is $499/$599 with a two year contract, it NEVER mentions that the is a subsidized price. Apple is notorious for restricting the sale price of their items. This is why you never (on the regular market!) see deeply discounted apple items. Since they are brick and mortar, they won't allow other retailers to directly compete with them with their own products.

Reading between the lines (mulityear exclusive contract, no mention of the word "locked" or "subsidized") it appears that the phone will only be available from Apple (and authorized retailers) and from Cingular retailers. You buy the phone, you get a 2 year deal with Cingular. Also, the idea of "locked" cell phones is quickly vanishing (albeit, not publicly yet).
 

xtant21

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Ok...on the unlock/lock tip....I've seen this flashed around on a few threads here. Does anyone remember that little ruling the FCC came out with a few months back that (something to this effect) the owner of the phone has the right to demand their unlock code and the cell provider has to give it to them?

So locked/unlocked...it shouldn't matter they can't hold you hostage anymore. So you sign a 2 year agreement and pay $200 bucks to get out of it. I mean what's another $200 bucks on top of $499/$599 when you simply, absolutely, must have this thing? It's only money...forget the mortgage or the kids college fund...people need their iPhone dammit and Cingular can't hold you hostage. Let anarchy reign.
 

Malatesta

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Okay, we know that Cingular is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone. NO WHERE does it say that phones have a subsidy lock. Dollars to Doughnuts that you can pluck out your cingular sim and put a t-mobile sim in that bad boy.
Can it be used with anything but Cingular? –No.

Is it an “unlocked” phone, so I can use it with a carrier other than Cingular? –No.

Will there be a non-Cingular version? –Not within the first two years.

Can I put my T-Mobile SIM card in it instead of Cingular? –No.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/the-ultimate-iphone-frequently-asked-questions/
 

xtant21

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Thanks Mal...

You just put a knee to my groin.

Although I still can't help but want to use that FCC thing to our advantage...isn't that what the ruling is/was? If it is true quad-band and they can't not(double-negative...love it) give you the super-top-secret unlock passcode...what stops this from being used on T-Mo?
 

Malatesta

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Thanks Mal...

You just put a knee to my groin.

Although I still can't help but want to use that FCC thing to our advantage...isn't that what the ruling is/was? If it is true quad-band and they can't not(double-negative...love it) give you the super-top-secret unlock passcode...what stops this from being used on T-Mo?
I know, they really seem to by tying this down to Cingular till 2009.

Re: that ruling I think you are correct, but really I have no idea about that stuff. It could get interesting.
 

mikeymoves

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You know what? I feel like Apple is somehow being selective with their words on the iPhone. It's almost as if they are "winking" to us hard core apple loyalists. A good point has been raised about mentioning the phone in this still "development" stage in order to get the jump on letting the public know about it. You knew with the FCC approval process that takes months, this phone would have been leaked. Now, Apple had their big hoopla release and can further the development of this device.

ICHAT BABY!!
 

Malatesta

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I'll believe it when I see it...

Pogue played with a development stage prototype that is 6 months away from being released.
Keeping the faith, eh? :D

Is this a tech forum or a religious one? What makes you think that Cingular would not want to lock this down to just themselves? It's a cash cow for them, everyone knows it.

I too am willing to wait till June (but I'm leaning towards Pogue over faith today).
 

newtonjack

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The iPhone announcment has the iPhone with a mulit-year exclusive with Cingular.

Multi-year! Think about that, what do you think Sprint and Verizon are gonna do? Just sit back and watch?

I believe Sprint and/or Verizon have or will make a deal with Palm to produce a competing product, perhaps that is what the next big thing is. Palm could easily make a similar if not better looking device. Look at the Lifedrive it looks a lot like the iPhone except thicker, and Palm was developing that more than 2 years ago. And software you say? The os x is better? This is where Microsoft steps in and helps in that area.

Palm could make this device and Verizon/Sprint subsidize the cost to make it cheaper than the iPhone.

No way Microsoft, Verizon and Sprint and gonna take this iPhone threat lying down.
 

cjdaniel

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It is locked down because Cingular is plunky down a fortune in investiment to install the infrastructure for the voicemail. This is totally new technology that the carrier must support to use the visual voicemail.
 

edmc

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Thanks for the Progue pointer, Malatesta:


While Progue says:

Can it be used with anything but Cingular? ?No.

Is it an ?unlocked? phone, so I can use it with a carrier other than Cingular? ?No.

Will there be a non-Cingular version? ?Not within the first two years.

Can I put my T-Mobile SIM card in it instead of Cingular? ?No.

He later says:

Does it work overseas? ?Yes. It?s a quad-band GSM phone, meaning you can use it in almost any country (for an added fee, of course).

I, thanks to Progue, am pretty convinced this is a terrible, and true, "rumor" that the iPhone will only be available on Cingular for the forseeable future. That said, the "overseas" quote just simply doesn't compute...unless he is talking ONLY about "roaming". Ouch! Yet another catastrophe... Even if I were a Cingular subscriber (I'm not, I'm on T-Mobile so some will consider this "sourgrapes" I suppose), this is the last time I pay attention to Apple's iPhone - until they correct this imho horrendous error...
 

Felipe#WP

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So locked/unlocked...it shouldn't matter they can't hold you hostage anymore. So you sign a 2 year agreement and pay $200 bucks to get out of it. I mean what's another $200 bucks on top of $499/$599 when you simply, absolutely, must have this thing? It's only money...forget the mortgage or the kids college fund...people need their iPhone dammit and Cingular can't hold you hostage. Let anarchy reign.

you assume they that the $200 cost to break the contract will remain the same.

dont you think cingular knows that have a hot phone? and that ppl will want it and will just join up to break the contract? dont you think they will probably up the cost for breaking the contract?

the same way apple prevents you from installing osx on any intel based pc, i can see them putting in code where you can only use the phone on their prefered carriers. or saying it cant be unlocked.

this just makes good business sence.
 

meyerweb#CB

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Arrgh! The amount of mis-information and mis-understanding I read on the internet is unbelievable.

First, the fact that a phone is locked doesn't preclude it being used overseas. It just means you pay through the nose roaming charges when you do.

Second, the FCC did NOT say that phone companies have to unlock your phone if you demand it. What it DID say is that phone companies can't prevent you from unlocking your own phone, or paying a 3rd party to do it for you. But no way is Cingular required to provide any information necessary to help you do it.

The above are facts, readily ascertainable with a few internet searches. The following are my opinions:

No way Cingular bought into this deal unless the 2 year exclusive period is truly exclusive (within the U.S.). You can betcha that phone will be locked down tighter than a drum. The argument that because it's OS-X it can't be locked is silly. ANY operating system can support locking code. In truth, the power of OS-X compared to most phone OS's makes complex locking and encryption programs even easier to implement.
 

CGK#IM

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EDGE vs. EVDO
The iPhone will likely never support EVDO. I presented EVDO as an example of a mythical high end feature that would add to the cost of the iPhone. Technically, upgrading to EVDO might not in itself necessitate a much higher price tag for the iPhone, but changing Apple's strategy to include EVDO most certainly would.

That's because EVDO is not a close competitor to EDGE, but rather a different generation of a different set of radio technologies. EVDO is related to CDMA, the set of radio technologies designed by QUALCOMM and sold by services providers Verizon and Sprint in the US, among others.

In contrast, EDGE is the existing standard for GSM data networks. GSM is a direct rival to CDMA. In the US, Cingular is the largest GSM provider, so Cingular does not--and will not ever--support EVDO, just as Verizon does not support EDGE. They are rival families of mobile data technology.

EDGE offers service rated at about quarter Mb/sec. That's about twice the speed of ISDN (.128 MB/sec), but significantly slower than even the slowest offerings of DSL (.3 to 1.5 Mb/sec), and a fraction of the throughput of 802.11b WiFi (typical: 6.5 Mb/sec).

EDGE is a big step behind EVDO in performance, but as I noted, the iPhone is unlikely to support EVDO in the future because the next step for EDGE isn't CDMA's EVDO, but rather GSM's own next generation, artfully named HSUPA. So future versions of the iPhone in 2008 or 2009 will likely be updated support HSUPA, not EVDO.


http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/93CA0BF6-6296-4DCF-88EA-9E27E617E96A.html