Verizon to Soon Offer Phone Payment Plans → UnLocked Phone Legislation

my guess is Verizon is hedging their bets. if they can't prevents us from unlocking our phones by law and using them elsewhere, then they would want to recope as much of the phone cost as possible.

Well unless you do not plan on actually using your Verizon phone for calls and texting then sure you can take it elsewhere. Sorry but calls and texting still use CMDA which are useless on any GSM network. Even on Sprint's CDMA network Verizon uses a different frequency so once again uses. So basically you phone would be just a mini tablet in which case GET A TABLET.

I'm not sure why the pro-unlocked phone supporters don't get this point yet.

Well, not entirely true. You can take a Vz Iphone 5 to a a GSM country with a prepaid SIM (India, Ghana) and it works well

I would hazard a guess that the VAST majority would want to use their phones in the US. And not everyone wants Apple's overpriced crap either.

WTF are you talking about? You can text and call from a Sprint phone while roaming on Verizon and use 3g data. Sprint have roaming agreements with Verizon and cell carriers like Cricket so that their phones will work on their frequencies. I flashed my EVO 3D over to Cricket and it worked fine: 3g, text, and calls. While with Sprint, there were places where you could only get Verizon coverage and their 3G. Also there were PRLs where you could roam 24/7 on Verizon. Although 6 months down the line, you may get a call from Sprint terminating their contract with you due to excessive roaming.