Quote:
Originally Posted by Nurhisham Hussein
Is it just me or is the phone business model in the US broken?
|
You are correct, sir.
The US carriers and their lock-in subsidies have a stranglehold on the market. I'd go so far as to say that it goes beyond just agreeing to carry a certain handset. My guess is there are implied threats to the manufacturers that if they offer unlocked devices here, they may have a difficult time getting future devices "approved" on the network. AT&T wants to protect it's iPhone goldmine at any cost.
It wouldn't be so bad if the carriers would at least carry the top of line devices so those of us that want a big hi-res sceen could get one, but they seem determined to aim most of their efforts to the low-middle end of the market.
I'm hoping that, at least in Acer's case we may be able to get one of these from an importer later this year, but I'm not holding my breath.