With Free, France shows the US what an open mobile market should be


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If you hadn't noticed, T-Mobile has been on a rampage lately in the US. It has offered cheaper contract-free plans, paid users cold hard cash to switch, and generally crashed other carriers' parties. The result has been a wave of new customers for T-Mobile and cheaper, me-too plans from AT&T and Verizon -- all a boon to US consumers. But over in France, an alternate-reality version of this scenario has been playing out. Until recently, old guard carriers like Orange and SFR have trundled along, milking customers while stifling innovation. Then, trampling over them on a white horse, came a Bizarro T-Mobile carrier called Free Mobile. It's been a far greater competitive threat than T-Mo in the US and, thanks to its radical plans, France has become a wireless utopia with some of the cheapest rates in the world.

 

 

More at - http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/09/free-mobile-market/

 

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And as much as folks may not want to face the reality, AT&T Mobility is actually dead on with that comment about what the auction is really about.  By the applicaiton of limits as to how much a successful bidder could acquire, it does actually limit how much revenue the seller (the government, in this case) can get for what it is selling.  If the REAL purpose of the auction is to foster competition, why not be honest with ALL the would-be bidders up front, instead of pulling these sorts of shenanigans after the fact?

 

I'm no fan of AT&T Mobility - I was not a fan of even the original AT&T (which was SBC Communications).  However, when they are right, I will give them credit for it.

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Id like to see an eu wide ban on sim-locking more than anything

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Id like to see an eu wide ban on sim-locking more than anything

 

That would indeed be nice. What's more ridiculous is some operators charging full prices for carrier-locked phones, coupled with 2 year contract. Telekom Austria which owns the "VIP" operator does that in several Eastern European countries. Its a freaking rip-off in every sense of the word.

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