Verizon Wireless Phones Gaining Market Share with IPhone
Verizon wireless phones come from one of the largest cellular service providers in the Western Hemisphere with certain of their subscription plans. With Apple’s recent foray into the Verizon catalog of handsets, however, customers of the wireless communications giant now have more chatting choices than ever before!
On the other hand, these devices are just commodities now and people don’t really talk about Verizon wireless phones no matter what the roster of available brands are. The situation is now akin to that of laundry detergent, with hardly a significant difference across brands. The market is vastly different from what it used to be just five years ago, never mind ten or even twenty, when such handsets were status symbols! Nowadays such electronics is affordable to one and all and it’s the not having one that would seem unusual.
And so this is why folks don’t specifically speak of Verizon wireless phones – they just want something that allows them to talk, first and foremost, carrier be damned! In response to consumer apathy companies have simply “locked” up their phones instead of coming up with an unbeatable offer that will not only attract but also keep the customer, long-term. Correct: the phone is rendered inoperable when customers switch service providers! You would imagine that since the phone is bought and paid for, it belongs to you, and you can determine which service provider to use it with.
Wrong! Cellular network companies argue that since they subsidize part of the cost of the phone, making it cheaper when purchased as part of a subscription plan compared to being bought separately, they have the right to lock their phones – yes, “their” phones. Curiously, there has been no class-action lawsuit against such a potentially anti-competitive policy, one that’s long been adopted by all the carriers in the industry. It must be the presence of massive and/or numerous legal loopholes, though it’s still a little puzzling how tobacco companies can be defeated but not cellular carriers who disable people’s phones!
Luckily, there’s a way around such a restriction: “jail-breaking” or unlocking the phone. In many cases, a phone can be unlocked by just entering a certain code into it!