I hope something good comes of this.

[Battlesmurf]

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/99655

I have a cell phone that sits in a drawer - reduced to several minutes a month and no options. All of this because I needed a different provider for the people I work with because termination of the contract was $2xx (it was cheaper to keep the phone and ride out the remainder).

Thoughts? Any ideas of what will come of this?

[Ed Oscuro]

Cell phone rebates from providers in California...poof!

I think it's a reasonable tradeoff when you consider that phones are becoming increasingly complex and feature-heavy.

[GaijinPunch]

(and consumers can use their phones anywhere in the country),

Sprint fucked me out of $.50 a minute )for several hours one week when I went home to Texas and was on the phone w/ my wife a lot of the time. Roaming rate are the biggest fuck job.

[Ex-Cyber]

I think this would make the push for unlocked phones a lot easier. There's still an incentive for providers to require locked phones (being able to gouge customers for ringtones, wallpapers, control apps, etc.) but it'll be harder for them to justify it to the customers without that rebate. Then again Nintendo seems to have no problems convincing people to buy DS and Wii, and by all accounts I've heard those are not really subsidized.