FUD. Do more research here:

http://www.t-mobile.com/

and here:

https://play.google.com/store/device...orpus_selector

Wrong for quite a few reasons.

1) You have to be in an area with good T-Mobile coverage for the only other GSM network in the US that has coast to coast coverage. I am not in an area like that - halfway between Charlotte and Atlanta there's a lot of dead spots that T-Mobile have yet to fill up.

2) You're talking about purchasing unlocked phones. Wrong. I can do that. I can join any network that supports my frequencies - the more the merrier. T-Mobile is typically 1700/2100 and AT&T are typically 850/1900. Things like pentaband and quad-band phones - like the Nexus S or Nokia N9 - remove the guess work, but you have to have coverage.

3) When you purchase an unlocked phone, you can be contract free or under a limited contract - T-Mobile has removed their prior cooler plans - that can be PAYG or pre-paid. Those are getting harder to find - but things like Walmart's Straight Talk do help and don't matter on the airwaves.

Now, what does that all mean? Buy an unlocked phone, you will not get a lower monthly price. It is harder to locate the unlimited T-Mobile plans now it seems (search for the threads here). And there's no real monthly break for an unlocked phone.

You just can break away from AT&T and go to T-Mobile and vice versa at your own time without an ETF.

Again, FUD. Here are links for the lazy (i.e. gerbick):

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/i...ual-plans.aspx

If you can't do the math, you should probably just stay on contract.

You can't read apparently.

Those plans are great when you have coverage. Not all areas are covered by T-Mobile. They have the 4th best coverage in the US.

I mentioned PAYG, which means pay as you go. But here's the deal. I can do that with Sprint, Verizon, Virgin, T-Mobile, AT&T. And if I supply the phone, I do not get a discount.

I'm just a different tier of customer. For the record, I pay less than the PAYG, non-contract phones by going to post-paid but not using a subsidized phone - not since 2008 actually. It does mean that I get a shitload of crap e-mails trying to sell me a subsidized phone.

Here's the math for you buddy:

I pay 68.26 per month with all taxes included for unlimited texts, 2gb data (got dropped out of my grandfathered unlimited data), 1400 minutes per month with rollover minutes with an unlocked Nokia N9 (prior phone) and (current phone) Nokia Lumia 900 (bought without contract).

Your link shows that I'd probably pay 100.00 for prepaid to get near the same amount of minutes. I could skimp and pay like $3.00 a day, but that would work out to $93.00 before taxes on 31 day months.

Unfairly though, I get a 23% discount from AT&T for post-paid service since I've done work with them in the past when they were still Cingular.

Do the math. I'm paying less. No real benefit for an unlocked phone other than I do not worry about ETF.

Strike three, you're out.

Yay! I'm a winner!

Well, I still pay about 30% of what my coworkers do and their unlimited this and unlimited that doesn't mean I want to pay more. So, you've gotta take in account your own total actual cost before deciding that $0.01 means $0.01. But I understand that you're on a different market with no actual competition.

Gerbig and Daperl both have a point. In US in general you rarely get any benefit by bringing your own phone.

The only major carrier that I'm familiar with and who provides benefits of bringing your own device is T-mobile. By looking their "normal" individual plans and comparing to their "value" individual plans they are typically $10 cheaper than equivalent "normal" plan. Counting over the typical 24 month contract term that makes $240 difference (excluding taxes).

Depending on the area, the T-mobile may or may not be an option. Obviously Gerbig resides in a area with bad/no T-mobile coverage. (On the other hand my area has excellent coverage with both providers.)

Now this is offtopic so maybe go back to talk about the Nokia stock... whatever value is left of it.

It's actually about $20 - $25 cheaper per 30 days:

And there are no taxes on pre-paid plans, so it's really $25+ - $30+ cheaper a month.

Also, good phones are only gonna get cheaper:

MediaTek MT6577 helps push dual-core Android 4.0 smartphones under $200 contract-free

Back on topic:

That's okay, they moved our thread to offtopic already. :´(