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Monday, March 28, 2011

AT&T and T-Mobile merger

  Much has been written about proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger.  The bad part is that it will reduce competition and that means the customer will have fewer choices and the choices will not be as good.   At least Verizon will remain a strong competitor.

  I'm hoping for one good thing from this merger -- AT&T will finally allow SIM-unlocks for the iPhone as they do for all other phones they sell.    When travelling internationally the big advantage of a GSM phone is being able to purchase a SIM card from the country where you're visiting.   That gives you a local number in that country so you can make much cheaper calls (as international roaming charges are a complete ripoff).   Also a local number means that local people can call you without having to dial a long distance number.

 I assume that the reason that the iPhone was singled out for special treatment as regards unlocking was that AT&T felt it would lose money if  a subscriber bought a subsidized phone from AT&T and then immediately quit and left AT&T.  Now the early termination fee is very high and the iPhone is sold worldwide so it doesn't make financial sense to buy it from AT&T if you plan on terminating early.

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