T-Mobile to block iPhone Skype use in Germany

You have been living in a place that carriers has been robbing you for YEARS and your perception has been skewed by that. Offering you a "free" phone blah blah blah is just a way the carriers use to hide how they have been overcharging you for the service.

Here is how that works in places like Hong Kong.

You walk into the carrier's store and tell them you want a phone plan. (I said "a phone plan", not "a phone", or "a phone and a plan", see that? Good.) Show them your photo ID and a proof-of-address, pay for the first month's service charge, and you're good to go. Within 15 minutes, you'll be walking away from the store happily with a SIM. Put that into ANY phone, and it'll be activated within an hour or so. The plans starts from US$6 or maybe even less nowadays. You get around 500 anytime minutes with that. Want more? 1200 anytime + 800 network minutes is just around $12. And btw, call display, voice mail, call waiting, conference calls, call forwarding (no such thing as "forwarding minutes"... if you forwarded you number to a land line, you pay nothing for those calls you received) etc are pretty much all standard (read: free) services that they sometimes won't even bother to advertise.

Need a phone too? No problem. Get one from any gadgets store, or a phone store. A phone store? What is that? Well... they sell... yep you're right, cell phones. You pay for the real cost of the phone, and you get a fully functional phone, and you can do whatever you want with it. Just plug in a SIM from ANY carrier and it'd work. Nice, eh? You can even keep using that when you're on a trip or if you're moving to another country. Just pick up a PAYG SIM from their local carriers. Why pay for roaming if you're just making local calls? Doesn't make any sense. And oh, btw, contrary to what YOUR carrier is telling you, the true cost of a fully unlocked phone is actually not that expensive. Not like you can't afford one if you carriers don't "subsidize" that.

But hey, I got my phone for FREE from my carrier. Who pay for phones these days? Well, we have that too. If you ask for it, you can get a phone from your carrier when you sign up for your plan. What would happen is you pay an up-front cost for the phone (usually a bit higher than the market price), and they will refund the "subsidized" portion to you account bits by bits over the next 18 months or so. (i.e. you ended up paying less for your plan) With that we get similar discount, if not steeper, as you do. You are free to terminate your service whenever you want, the only thing to lose is you don't get the full amount back, but you keep the phone so that's not really that big of a deal. Wait, what about your your contract? Con.. what? There is no contract. If you aren't happy with your carrier, just switch to one that'll make you happy. Early termination fee? Never heard of that. And oh, the best part? EVEN if you decided to get your phone from your carrier, it is still fully unlocked. The whole locking thing is just nonsense. That shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

When I moved to Canada I am consistently being surprised by how the carriers here are ripping people off. A plan starts at $20? Hmm, okay I can take that. But that's only for 100 minutes. You can get 200 minutes for just $25... What? 100 minutes? Um.... fine... I'll go for the $25 one. And you will need to pay for call display and voice mail too, that's going to cost you another $10. Grrr.. whatever. Cool, then I think we are set. Oh, one more thing, which phone would you like? Umm.. I already have one, won't need that. But they are FREE! Alright, I'll just pick that one, I won't mind having a backup phone. When I say free, I mean "free with a 2-year contract". What? Well ten no thanks, I don't want it. You HAVE TO get one. Don't want a contract? You can get this awesome phone for just $80.Nice. Paying $80 for a piece of crap that I won't even use. And it's locked too. ...

While I agree the price part has something to do with population density, I think this whole business model is just evil. Maybe you have been exposed to that for long enough that you don't see any problems with that, but really, your carriers are ripping-you-off. Why should they be allowed to limit what I can do with MY phone? No, they didn't pay for that, you did. You just didn't realize. You are not forced to get a computer with your Internet connection, so why I can't get a phone plan without a phone? And even if you got a computer cheaper from your ISP, they can't lock down you computer, right? Why should phones be different?