Consumer choice? There’s an App for that
| July 7, 2009 | 6:44 PM
More journal entries from Cindy House »
Boy, those iPhones sure are cool, what with the App Store and the touch screen and the Wii-like motion sensing.
Too bad they’re only available through AT&T.
IPhone maker Apple has an exclusive partnership with Ma Bell, but hundreds of thousands have “jailbreaked” their devices – voiding the warranty, by the way — to use their iPhones with their preferred cell-phone carrier.
Senate politicians and the Federal Communications Commission are taking note of this consumer revolt, and rumors are swirling that the Justice Department’s antitrust division may get involved.
The iPhone-AT&T deal has drawn the most attention recently, but exclusivity pacts are common among cell-phone carriers, including industry giants Verizon and Sprint. The carriers say such deals allow them to offer handsets at a discount. That discount is then subsidized by requiring purchasers to sign a two-year service contract.
Consumer advocates, though, say that ditching these deals would lead to greater competition in the market, which generally leads to lower prices overall — for the technology and for the service.
While the politicians and the activists sort all this out, the consumers have already spoken: It seems they want their iPhone and their own network, too, whether or not they have to hack into the gadget to get it.
apple, at&t, exclusivity, iphone
