mind of matthew dot net

as i’m sure you heard that apple announced the latest iteration of the iphone yesterday, the iphone 3gs (the s apparently stands for “speed”). the phone incorporates several new features most notably the improved camera that will make my flip video obsolete…or at least i thought it would. i woke up this morning and started investigating how much it would cost me, a long time at&t customer, to upgrade to the new phone. i was shocked at the reality of the situation.

i bought the original iphone right after its initial price drop, but i’d already been an at&t customer for years. a lot of west-coasters that i’ve listened to over the years have complained about the shoddy coverage and sub-par customer service at at&t.  i had not experienced this. here in the midwest/southwest at&t is king. they are, in my opinion, the best mobile carrier. i always have a signal, and my data speeds are more than adequate. i’ve never had an issue with their customer service either. any time i’ve had a problem, it has been handled in a professional and timely manner.

so back to the point. you’d think that at&t would want to retain all of it’s loyal customers by offering existing customers a fair deal in upgrading to the new iphone 3gs. i mean, they’re getting a new two year contract (which is where they make their money, not on the hardware), and they get happy customers. but no. that’s not the case. iphone 3g users that are not near the end of their contract must pay an additional $200 to upgrade. this translates to “we really want to gain market share and get as many customers under contract. as for our existing customers…we’re already making money off of them. if they want a new phone, they’ll have to pay extra.” it’s understandable that at&t would want to recoup the costs associated with the iphone subsidy, but punishing existing users is simply not the right way to do it.

this policy is absolutely infuriating. and the backlash on the internet has been immense. these are exactly the same policies that companies like dish network and directv use when customers would like to upgrade to the latest hardware. it absolutely a bad business practice. hopefully the uproar over this at&t policy will cause the company to rethink this practice. they aren’t sealing with the general public. they’re dealing with apple fanatics, which are a different breed altogether. i hope the company is listening. So car their stance has been this:

An iPhone 3G customer in most cases can early upgrade at $399 [16GB] or $499 [32GB].

oh…and i can’t wait to see how much they are going to charge me to tether my iphone to my computer so they can share the internet connection that i’m already paying for…