I do not understand how the US government and the FCC have allowed the cell phone companies to walk all over them when it comes to unlocking phones, roaming charges while traveling abroad, and the outdated CDMA technology which Verizon and Sprint still seem unwilling to retire.
Welcome to the 21st century, guys! Europe is outpacing you with their fabulous array of unlocked (or unlockable) smartphones, all available for less than what AT&T customers pay per month for their iPhones! You can walk into any phone store (nearly all of which carry the iPhone, btw) and get a new phone with a pay-as-you-go sim plan, and away you go! For example, when my boyfriend bought his HTC Desire, an Android smartphone not available in the 'states, he walked in to the Car Phone Warehouse (a mobile phone shop), signed up for a new 2-year plan on Orange, for which he would be paying £40 a month. The phone was free.
A different example: When I bought my AT&T iPhone in December 2009, I had to pay $199.99 for the phone, plus an activation fee, and I continue to be hit with $150+ phone bills from AT&T per month. In addition, the cell phone reception in my house has dropped to nonexistent levels in the past few months. I get dropped calls continuously, as well as having full signal strength one minute, to down to 1 bar at best the next...and it's beginning to drive me mad!
And don't even get me started about the whole unlocking issue: I do not know of any legitimate phone shop in Charlotte that will unlock my iphone, or any phone for that matter. Yet they are smattered all over Europe, particularly in the larger cities such as London, Vienna, Munich, Prague, Dublin. They even have a few places in my boyfriend's mall in the small town of Stourbridge, England. I could buy an iphone from o2 and get it officially unlocked by them if I so desire...however it would come at the expense of losing my unlimited (which it turns out it really isn't) data usage. Oh well...Apple over here in the US nor AT&T would unlock my iphone.
I also just cannot figure out where these exorbitant roaming charges come from. I bought an iPhone in order to consolidate and have one phone for all countries, something I couldn't do when I was stuck on Verizon. However, had I known AT&T was going to charge me $19.99 per mb of data used while I was visiting my boyfriend in England, I would have said thanks but no thanks! Europeans have done away with ridiculously high roaming charges, I think it's time we should too!
