[lynchburgwildcats]

Starting in 2013, T-Mobile USA will no longer be subsidizing handsets with 2-year contracts, and will instead sell devices at full price or on installments. This means that devices and service will be completely separate going forward.

This is almost a carbon copy of its current "Value Plan" offerings, which give you cheaper monthly service prices (generally $20-$30 less) when you buy a phone full-priced or bring your own -- a model international users will be familiar with. T-Mobile said that 80-percent of its new line activations were on Value Plans in the last quarter, which means that this won't be too big of a shift from the way they're currently operating.

http://www.androidcentral.com/t-mobile- ... dsets-2013

Will be interesting to see how this works out. Americans might be turned away having to drop 500-600+ to get their top notch smartphone.

[alabama24]

On the other hand… I wonder if people can move their out-of-contract phones over… 20-30 a month cheaper would be very appealing then!

[Echomalleus]

It's funny you post this... I just bought my second phone on my Virgin Mobile Service for $50... HTC One V. That's right...no $500 to get a top notch smart phone (android 4.0, HD video, et al). I actually paid less for this phone on a prepaid service than I would have with a contract service. Most people don't realize the advantages that prepaid has, and for the longest time I didn't either.

Some background...for the longest time I was using Verizon's standard 450 minute plan, which included 100 texts and no web for a grand total of...with taxes... $52.95/month. Not only that, but the phone I bought, which in 2007 and 2009 respectively were both on the higher end of the middle spectrum, set me back about $100 each.

Fed up with this, and realizing after much analysis that I only talk for about 250 minutes a month, I found Virgin Mobile, which is owned by Sprint. I laughed, thinking back to my parents days of using the tracphone, and how measly their offerings might be. Turned out I was quite wrong and joined up with them in 2011. $35 for unlimited text and unlimited web. Only 300 minutes a month, but more than enough for me, considering I have an office phone and a home phone. Coupled with some amazing phone choices, and prices that if you wait patiently for price drops, make it actually a much better deal than contract plans.

[jbock13]

I'm just glad that man bear pig (Senator Gore) gave us the cell phones for vunnables program where 15.7 percent of our bill goes to making sure that those who don't work have a cell phone.

You can also thank former representative Rick Boucher if you lived in the fightin' ninth. Nobody knew bacon from Washington quite like Rick "Bacon" Boucher.

[lynchburgwildcats]

It's funny you post this... I just bought my second phone on my Virgin Mobile Service for $50... HTC One V. That's right...no $500 to get a top notch smart phone (android 4.0, HD video, et al). I actually paid less for this phone on a prepaid service than I would have with a contract service. Most people don't realize the advantages that prepaid has, and for the longest time I didn't either.

Some background...for the longest time I was using Verizon's standard 450 minute plan, which included 100 texts and no web for a grand total of...with taxes... $52.95/month. Not only that, but the phone I bought, which in 2007 and 2009 respectively were both on the higher end of the middle spectrum, set me back about $100 each.

Fed up with this, and realizing after much analysis that I only talk for about 250 minutes a month, I found Virgin Mobile, which is owned by Sprint. I laughed, thinking back to my parents days of using the tracphone, and how measly their offerings might be. Turned out I was quite wrong and joined up with them in 2011. $35 for unlimited text and unlimited web. Only 300 minutes a month, but more than enough for me, considering I have an office phone and a home phone. Coupled with some amazing phone choices, and prices that if you wait patiently for price drops, make it actually a much better deal than contract plans.

I love prepaid. Only problem I have with prepaid is the two best ones out there - Boost and Virgin Mobile - are operated by Sprint and have really terrible coverage in a lot of areas, and of course there is no roaming. I actually used to have Boost when I lived in Lynchburg, then I moved out here, and I got rid of it after I used up all my minutes. I'm on the old school prepaid - pay by the minute since I don't even use 100 minutes a month and don't really have any much of any need for the data.

On AT&T prepaid now which has much better coverage. Their phone selection is a trainwreck, but I can get a better phone for much cheaper on ebay, which is what I did when I got my current phone. Paid less than I did for the one I got direct from AT&T and it makes my old phone seem like a cheapo flip phone from five years ago. Now I have just converted my old Android phone into my PS unit with the offline GPS app I bought.