You know, forced un-bundling isn't all that dumb. In Finland we have about the best priced plans in Europe thanks to rampant competition enabled by customer choice and have never had to deal with nasty things like locked phones and 2 year plans.
These only appeared after allowing experimental period to allow bundling plans for 3G cell phones a couple of years back. And guess what, we pretty much hate them - having learned to appreciate all the freedom, and being cost-conscious enough to calculate the true total price of the bundled goods (you will more often than not have paid more for the phone by the end of 2 years, can't change operators, phones or chip in a foreign SIM on travels before the contract is through).
Same goes for the iPhone, calculating the price for 2 year plan has definitely raised a few eyebrows over here. Of course the more innocent phone users here are expecting the device reasonably priced, unlocked, unbundled and without long contracts, just like our beloved Nokias have always been...
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Unbundling ain't dumb
You know, forced un-bundling isn't all that dumb. In Finland we have about the best priced plans in Europe thanks to rampant competition enabled by customer choice and have never had to deal with nasty things like locked phones and 2 year plans.
These only appeared after allowing experimental period to allow bundling plans for 3G cell phones a couple of years back. And guess what, we pretty much hate them - having learned to appreciate all the freedom, and being cost-conscious enough to calculate the true total price of the bundled goods (you will more often than not have paid more for the phone by the end of 2 years, can't change operators, phones or chip in a foreign SIM on travels before the contract is through).
Same goes for the iPhone, calculating the price for 2 year plan has definitely raised a few eyebrows over here. Of course the more innocent phone users here are expecting the device reasonably priced, unlocked, unbundled and without long contracts, just like our beloved Nokias have always been...