Rural Carriers Take Fight to FCC
May 20, 2008, 7:40 AM by Eric M. Zeman
The Rural Cellular Association is planning to file a petition with the FCC as early as today questioning the exclusive handset deals that the major carriers have with handset manufacturers. The rural carriers believe that the deals are anti-competitive, anti-consumer, and prevent the rural carriers from offering the best devices available to their customers. The Rural Cellular Association wants the practice investigated. The Wall Street Journal says it is unlikely that the FCC will pursue the investigation too far.
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Comments
On the side of the rural carriers....
I believe their fight is worth fighting. Why should the big guys only get the best devices while the smaller ones get stuck with the old boring stuff? It's very uncompetetive. Exclusivity isn't fair. A signature phone is different. However even that should be allowed to be used else where if someone paid for that device.
It isn't fair, but neither is the competetive market. Manufacturers often get a significant amount of money for going exclusive for a period of time. Why would they want to change that practice?
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I agree. If I want to plop down $950 for the latest BlackBerry that's exclusive to AT&T but I want to use the phone on T-Mobile, I should be able to do that, purchasing the phone from RIM at full retail price. I think that the ability to have subsid...
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Want an Exclusive Phone? Sell out
Who are these "Rural Carriers" and why hasn't someone bought them?
🤣
Awesome.
Awesome.
gonna stick my neck out...
...and be the bad guy here. “For other consumers — particularly rural ones — these exclusivity arrangements prevent them from purchasing many of today’s most popular handsets because they reside in areas not served by the one carrier offering the desired handset.†see link below
i'm going to go with the carriers on this one. how is not being able to have a certain phone even a fairness issue at all? i mean, are folks in africa gonna start against att because they can't have an iphone? having a phone at all is a privielege. to be consistent with this i could complain/sue the high school i went to because they had an exclusive deal to sell only pepsi products, and i wanted coke. or the only tire store in my tow...
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i'm going to go with the carriers on this one. how is not being able to have a certain phone even a fairness issue at all? i mean, are folks in africa gonna start against att because they can't have an iphone? having a phone at all is a privielege. to be consistent with this i could complain/sue the high school i went to because they had an exclusive deal to sell only pepsi products, and i wanted coke. or the only tire store in my tow...
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I believe that you are spot on in your reasoning. Litigation is the new option to get your way. If they want the iPhone they should get the cash together and buy AT&T.
Allow rural carriers phones if not competing
I happen to live in an area where I can't purchase service from the large vendors. I am stuck with my rural carrier. I think in this case a rural carrier should be able to offer "exclusive" phones in their area or to work a deal with the phone vendors.
read: iPhone
This has got to be all about the exclusivity of the iPhone, right? I mean, how many phones are out there that are just copycats of one another?
actually when I read this I was thinking Blackberry Thunder. the iPhone has been out a year. but who knows.
Seems like all the major carriers have some exclusive phones: the iphone, voyager, gleam, thunder, centro, not to mention the pearl was an ATT exclusive for a bit, or at least a GSM only unit.
With the saturation rate approaching 90% and coverage b...
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