back to article T-Mobile answers Verizon iPhone with free handsets

Just as the much-ballyhooed Verizon Wireless iPhone is making its debut in the US, smaller rival T-Mobile is attempting to grab the spotlight with a new promotion: on this Friday and Saturday, all of its phones will be free with a two-year contract. And that "all" includes high-end models such as the Android-equipped HSPA+ …

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  1. MacRat
    Happy

    iPhone on T-Mobile

    My factory unlocked iPhone 3GS purchased from the Apple store in Hong Kong works great on T-Mobile US.

    While it can only connect via EDGE, it is still a step up from my Sony Ericsson P910 phone which only had GPRS.

  2. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Analyst is right

    AT&T *LOVES* fudging the numbers. The figure AT&T calls number of "customers" is actually the total number of connections. Verizon has 94.1 million customers, but 102.2 million connections, well ahead of AT&T's 95.5 million connections.

    Anyway... the reason for the IPhone running on EDGE on T-Mobile's network is T-Mobile runs their GSM/EDGE network within the 1900mhz band (which is widely supported) but they and IWireless both run their 3G in the AWS band (which is 1700mhz uplink and 2100mhz downlink.) Very few devices supports this band, and IPhone is not one of them.

  3. Steve Evans

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    Paying for a handset on a contract? What a very strange idea!

    1. frank ly

      My First Thought As Well.......

      ......but I'm wondering what the TCO is over a two year period for various patterns of 'ownership' and usage; compared across different countries. Has anyone done the research?

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: My First Thought As Well

        I've recently been doing those exact maths for the HTC desire Z... Even with buying myself out of the last 3 months and getting it on an upgrade it works out better than buying the phone separately and going SIM only. Being able to get £100 back for my old N70 from phones4u is even better... Did the same a few years ago, so I had to get another N70 off ebay.... £20 :-)

  4. Matt Siddall

    I wonder

    If this applies to any phone on any contract... For example, a nice shiny new top end phone could set you back £400, but if you could get it on the cheap as chips £10 per month contract (or whatever the US equivalent is) then you'd be getting quite a bargain, and you'd get free calls, texts and/or data (although probably not a massive amount).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I doubt it

      Since the article is about the U.S. and over here we pay for things with $, not £, I don't think anyone will be getting a £10/month contract.

      Like most U.S. carriers, T-Mobile's cheapest voice-only plan is $40/month with a 2-year contract. So those "free" phones cost nearly $1000.

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