Verizon CEO: We'll Kill Phone Subsidies If Users Want It → Wait and see?

Wait and see till you are out of business.
I would rather buy an unlocked phone and go with the best price for service.
I think your phone subsidies are a fraud.

Hey Lowell, doesnt VZwireless have their own CEO? Lets talk about FiOS expansion....

Not fraud. I like them just fine. No way I'd pay $600 for a phone. I paid $50 for my phone. It would have been $450 full price. I'll take the $50 and a 2 year contract I have no intention on breaking anyway.

Verizon going out of business? Try looking at their quarterly repots. they have been gaining more customers then the other 3 COMBINED and have the lowest churn in the industry.

Also no such thing a truly unlocked phone. Since Verizon and Sprint still use CDMA for calls and texting and at&t and T-mobile still use GSM who makes this magical unlocked GSM/CDMA device that works on EVRY frequency used by the 4 major carriers? Heck you can even use Sprint device on Verizon and vise verse even though both use CDMA because they use different frequencies.

Sprint had huge amounts of money too at one point and look at them. The bigger you are the harder you fall and all that goes up- must come down. Customers/Consumers will stop paying for the high fees/prices that VZW and AT&T want (and now with Sprint) and will move to MVNOs and other contract free services such as with T-Mobile. Have you seen that contract free subscriber rates are actually going UP and contract customer counts are coming down? Customers are tired of the contracts, tired of the credit issues and BS and are looking for true options. VZW and AT&T will see it or will pay for it later.

BTW- the BB Storm 2 was a GSM/CDMA phone and could be used on TMO and AT&T along with CDMA networks. It was a world phone. VZ just didn't want you unlocking it to take else where. And actually Sprint will refuse to use a VZW phone and VZW will refuse to use a Sprint device. You can however take those devices to other budget carriers that are CDMA - Revol/Metro and they'll flash/unlock them and use 'em.

Cellcos telling manufacturers what to charge for handsets is the BIGGER fraud.. those price gouging high prices for the phones upfront are the BAIT to lure customers into making a deal with the devil cellcos for 24 month contracts. Seriously.. when did you see handsets go from $99 all the way upto $600 and more until the Iphone & Android handsets? Metro PCS revealed how low handset prices for an entry level android phone could go to $40 versus $300+. This only adds to the anti-competitive dysfunctional marketplace.

BTW, this is talking about mainstream mass produced handsets.. not the early analog days where you had to be a rich fat cat or criminal (drug dealer) to afford analog service pricing.

From what I've seen T-Mobiles plans are not that great when you add in 4G service. So you are really not saving anything by forgoing the subsidy.

I would expect, like all things electronic, that if the you weren't required to maintain a 2 year agreement, for which you pay dearly, and if the phone company with billions behind them weren't paying for the cell phone, then, like the microwave and desktop computer, prices would come down. But hey, if the cell company wants to pay me $600 per phone as a manufacturer, why not. If they can't move their stock, the price will come down, just like the clone phones and tablets that do the same as your $600 phone but only cost me $149.