Re:Apple Broke My iPhone, and Their Policies Prevent Them fr...
by gwillen on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @02:35AM
(#4813270)
Ahh, when I wrote that comment I was thinking of residential ISPs. I agree that there is more competition in the wireless ISP space, and I don't think we're getting shafted _too_ badly by the pay-by-the-byte plans there, compared to what I would expect if residential ISPs got into the pay-by-the-byte business.
Five years ago this was not as true as it is today, as at the high-end of the market (so only people with a lot of money to burn) people would sometimes select carriers based on what phones were available (hence the value of the AT&T-exclusive iPhone), but with a world where handset manufacturers carry most of the power (and in fact get even a good percentage of the money paid to carriers, due to the subsidy) and all of the best phones are available for every major carrier, this no longer matters: carriers are now dumb pipes to everyone but a small percentage of people living in an area with a major coverage disparity.