"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <veldy71@yahoo.com> wrote:

>In alt.cellular.t-mobile Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>> On 2008-01-07, LHA <nobody@nobody1.com1> wrote:
>>
>>> If the cellular companies provided the service and support
>>> that their customers desire and deserve, they would NOT need
>>> to lock us in with long, expensive contracts.
>>
>> As long as they're giving you a $200-$300 phone for free,
>> they're going to require that you guarantee future purchases in
>> order to cover the cost of that phone.
>>
>
>But they don't. They give you a $150 phone for free.

That's like saying "I charged it, so it was free." They have signed
to a contract that guarantees them a future revenue stream, and that
future revenue stream has a present value.

>They give you a $300
>phone for $150 ...

Assuming that it really cost them $300, which I doubt. Probably some
phones are sold for close to the carriers's retail price, but almost
certainly not all of them. If they weren't making money on the
process, they'd stop doing it.