said by LazMan:said by DarkSithPro:What difference does it make if you buy it subsidized, or not? You're still under contract and if you breach the contract you pay a hefty early termination fee. Either way the end result will be the same. The carrier still gets it's money. Also A lot of people root their phone to avoid additional tethering fees. It's absolutely ridiculous that the phone carrier charges you extra to use your limited data as you choose. I think people should fight back and demand roll-over unused data and unreasonable charges, along with unreasonable bloatware the carrier puts on their phones.
The ETFs (at least in Canada) are typically limited to about $200... So in theory, I buy a phone on contract monday for $50 - cancel it on Tuesday, and pay a $200 ETF - I'm still $450 ahead of the game; and the carrier is out $450 (they pay Apple/Samsung/HTC, etc for the device either way... Cost of acquisition is the term, and it's one of the biggest expenses carriers face)
Hmmm, must be a Canadian thing. Anyways The way I understand it is if you go to the Apple store and buy an iPhone at full price the only 2 major carriers that will compliment you is AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon and Sprint will not add the new IMEI's to their network. From what I understand is you have to buy the phones directly from Verizon and Sprint for it to be turned on in their network. This is not a hardware limitation as the 4s and 5 are world phones which can use GSM and CDMA networks...
