Back in the old good days, selling phones with contracts was illegal here in Finland. And then the the EU directive came, allowing operators to sell sim-locked 3G phones with a 2-year contract...

All this time I've been laughing at the poor fellows who manage to break their phone before the contract is over, or just get tired to the ridiculous call rates they are paying. I vowed I'd never fall to that trap. Oh, how wrong I was...

Yesterday, in anticipation of the coming N900, I signed a 2-year contract with the worst of them all - TeliaSonera Finland, the previously government-owned telco, which managed to waste 3 billion euros to a 3G license in Germany - which was voided when they finally figured they couldn't actually afford to build the infrastructure needed. For simplicity's sake, let's just call them the AT&T of Finland (yes, the same company also sells the iPhone here).

The reason? Well, they offered an unlimited data plan at a nominal 3,6Mbps transfer rate for 11,90 per month. Even comes with a free Huawei usb modem. The actual transfer rates remain to be seen, though... I'm more than just a little skeptical

Gotta love it when huge, monolithic corporations finally "get" it