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Comment by rusher81572 | Hacker News Reader

But all this will end up being the same thing right? I paid $199 for the iphone with Verizon. T-mobile will charge $99. I looked at the plans and it is better to go with verizon because they have a better tethering plan and better coverage and service. T-mobile's unlimited plan allows 250MB ~ 500MB or tethering only.

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The difference here is that the subsidy is explicit and optional and limited in time.

In the plan the article outlines, you pay T-Mobile $20 a month for 24 months to pay off the phone. On one hand it is better because because you can leave anytime and the cots are clear, but on the other, it looks a lot like a two year subsidized plan.

That's the glass is half empty view.

The other view is your're saving money by being given an interest-free loan to purchase the phone.

But isn't it the same with a two-year subsidized phone plan? You pay a little up front, and a little extra each month. Again, kudos to T-Mobile for making the costs transparent, but I don't see how it is substantially different.

Well, after the two years, you're T-Mobile bill goes down by ~$20/line a month while your bill on the other carriers stay the same.

This assumes, of course, that you don't buy a new phone and start the process all over again.

As long as they un-bundle the price of the phone from the price of the plans, consumers win.

But wouldn't you say they are just un-bundling it into a separate line item on your bill? You still pay $20 a month for 2 years. I really do appreciate the transparency, but I'd still make a choice based on overall cost.

Yeah, there's not much saving for me either. It'll cost $200 less over the course of two years if I go with 2 lines and T-Mobile's unlimited data plan (compared to the 2 lines and 6GB share everything plan I have from Verizon).

But, as you say, the Verizon plan lets tethering be as much as that xGB as you want. And for me, T-Mobile only offers very slow 2G service in my area while I get LTE from Verizon.

After those first two years, you do start to save real money ($40 every month, in my case), but that assumes you don't then upgrade to the latest iPhone or whatever and start all over again.

I'm currently with T-mobile. They started charging for tethering recently and this is making me want to switch. Their tethering charges seem insane since I plan to tether once a month or so.

I use a Galaxy Nexus on T-Mobile; I don't pay for tethering, and they only kick you back on HTTP connections if you're not paying for it (DPI/Layer 7). I just use HTTPS for everything when I tether my MBAir to my phone.

Or use a ssh tunnel/VPN.

Install a user-agent switcher extension/plugin and tell your browser to identify as an Android mobile or some other phone. T-Mobile only throws up the "please pay for hotspot" paywall if they detect a desktop browser.

Downside: You get mobile-oriented websites from apps that do user agent detection.

Thats legal for a mobile carrier in the US? Can the USPS open letters and charge for lewd content?

Letters have laws that special-case them.

That may be the case today, but I hardly doubt it was the original intent. They just protected letters because it was the only means of long-distance or written communication back then.

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