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by vardump·13y ago·view on hn ↗

  This is a country which Apple has never found easy - notably, 
  Russia bans handset subsidies, making the iPhone an expensive 
  option for most customers.
The effect is exactly the opposite; those countries where phones are mainly subsidized have also the highest total cost of ownership and ARPU (average revenue per user). The subsidized phones aren't cheap, quite the opposite.

Carrier subsidized model should be ended to bring down consumer telecommunication costs. It only benefits the carriers.

4 comments
Well, I think in context, what they mean is:

Russia bans handset subsidies, so customers compare actual handset costs from one handset to the other, and notice that iPhones cost hundreds of dollars more than other smartphones, making them expensive relative to alternative handsets.

Rather than:

iPhones in Russia are expensive relative to iPhones in America.

No man, you don't get it. MOST people in Russia really never buy expensive smartphones with subsidies. They actually pay the full price. My guess is, carriers tried this model, realized it doesn't really work very well and decided to dump it altogether.
No, man, I really do get it. I understand they pay full price. The point is, iPhones are a premium smartphone. They intrinsically cost more than many other smartphones. If you're looking at the (full) price of an iPhone versus the (full) price of a non-flagship Android phone, the (full) price of the non-flagship Android phone is typically hundreds of dollars less than the (full) price of the iPhone.
>They intrinsically cost more than many other smartphones.

that in the eyes of many Russians (like in any status symbol obsessed country) is the main advantage of iPhone :)

Now if only they'd release a diamond-encrusted model...
Hang on, you lost me here - why would we compare the price of the flagship Apple phone to the price of a non-flagship Android phone?
Because there are no non-flagship Apple phones.
What do you call the iPhone 4 or 4S then? Flagship-but-hundreds-of-dollars-less?
Last year's model.
Yes, and they don't buy it because they can compare the full price of the iPhone vs other flagships and see that they're getting much less for more money (i.e. being screwed over). Russians also seem pretty anti-Apple, thinking Macs and iPhones are a staple of the rich.
People buy iPhones. A lot. iPads too. Macs - not so much.

It's not that russians are anti-Apple, it's Apple that neglected Russian market for a decade. iPhone got very popular anyway from the first days of American phones jailbreaks (even before apps, before that stuff, a lot of American phones were smuggled), iPod too (it's not so expensive anyway), but that's it. No hi-end gear.

There is a large market in Russia for premium products; large economic inequality means lots of poor people but also a lot very wealthy people in the major cities.

They definitely have a market for full price iPhones, heck, there is a market for multiple companies selling gold-plated jewel-encrusted iPhones.

Haha, I'm not sure about that one. It's like everywhere: apple fanboys, anti-apple Android enthusiasts, then people who don't really care.
That's very true. I'm in Russia and telecommunications are dirt cheap here. I barely spend $10 in 3 months on my cellphone (that's including occasional internet browsing, although unlimited traffic would cost you more). Broadband internet is also very cheap, my bill is $8/mo for a 30Mbps connection and unlimited traffic.

I buy a new phone every 2 or 3 years. Go ahead and count on your own if I'm better off with this model.

That's true for a few major cities maybe, in province prices a not so cheap.
> Carrier subsidized model should be ended to bring down consumer telecommunication costs. It only benefits the carriers.

In the US at least, everyone has to get on LTE before that becomes a reality. Sprint and Verizon 3G and older handsets can't speak the same language, I don't think. AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM based systems so phone calls are possible using a handset form the other carrier, but their 3G frequencies are different - so you're hosed on mobile data. So, there's a de-facto lock into a carrier with your device even if there isn't one in the contract. (And $600 for a new device just for a different carrier is a hard sell, in a world where subsidies are gone.)

It's happening though. The problem is that companies like HTC charge the same price Apple does for the iPhone for what is a lower quality of product, in my experience. Once again, personal experience, but the number of hardware problems I've had within the walled garden of Apple are few compared to those in my Android days. And those that I've had have been fixed quickly by an Apple store representative, whereas with HTC or Verizon it was a multiple week ordeal.

That's something that makes the product itself even more valuable to me.

> The problem is that companies like HTC charge the same price Apple does for the iPhone for what is a lower quality of product, in my experience.

HTC charges a similar price for a lower quality phone that has a bigger display, more RAM, higher resolution display, more internal storage, external storage capability, etc, etc.

Sure. But it's also a phone that will still have lagging issues and receive maybe 1 or 2 updates before being obsolete.

There is more to phones that just specs.

No other major problem with HTC except their after sales support. My 2 years old HTC Desire Z is still running android 2.3.3.

Well, I've got another phone brand this time with a lot better track record.

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
> In the US at least, everyone has to get on LTE before that becomes a reality

Many (most?) Verizon/Sprint phones support GSM already in order to gain worldwide roaming capabilities. If they just allowed R-UIM cards or allowed foreign ESNs to be registered on their networks, handset manufactures would quickly follow suit and ship multi-standard phones that aren't software locked to prefer a certain standard.

> AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM based systems so phone calls are possible using a handset form the other carrier, but their 3G frequencies are different - so you're hosed on mobile data

High-end phones nowadays (such as the Xperia Z) support both 3G frequencies. Also, T-mobile are refarming their frequency allocations to open up 3G on their 1900 spectrum, same as AT&T. I could use my Euro-model iPhone 5 on T-Mobile 3G this year at WWDC.

I've always wondered: can a single phone have radios for all the different carriers? Could they share a single antenna? Could one be activated by the user selecting which network to get on?
> can a single phone have radios for all the different carriers?

All carriers in a single country? Yes, many do. All carriers worldwide? You'd be putting a lot of radios in the thing.

> Could they share a single antenna?

Not a radio expert, but I think each antenna has to be tailored to each wavelength. Maybe you can get away with one per band (one for 800-900, one for 1800-1900, one for 2100-2600)

> Could one be activated by the user selecting which network to get on?

You'd need a SIM card for each carrier you want and swap them out, and for American CDMA carriers you'd have to have your ESN registered with their networks beforehand.

All carriers worldwide would be tough, but a sufficiently multi-band GSM phone will typically give you pretty much worldwide roaming from a variety of carriers.

I'm in Europe. The last time I had a phone I couldn't effortlessly take to the US or Asia and use roaming was probably about '99.

Yeah, most modern phones will work most everywhere, but there'll always be one carrier's 3G or 4G network you'll miss out out. Some phones have really impressive radios in them now. Here's the Sony Xperia Z Ultra:

2G Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

3G Network: HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100

4G Network (C6833 model): LTE 800 / 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600

4G Network (C6806 model): LTE 700 / 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600

With one of these babies, pretty much all you're missing out on is extended range areas on Docomo Japan (800 MHz)

> You'd need a SIM card for each carrier you want and swap them out

There are phone models that support 2-3 SIM's , very useful when travelling so you don't have to swap anything but can call from different networks seamlessly.

I don't know about CDMA vs GSM, though I think it might work (there definitely are two-GSM-SIM phones, and GSM-and-CDMA doesn't seem philosophically different). Having a phone work on both AT&T and T-Mo, though, is easy, Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4 can do that, just to name a couple of popular ones.
"All" I don't know about, but got to Aliexpress.com and search for "GSM CDMA" - you'll get a bunch of phones supporting multiple standards.

Many Chinese phones even sell with from two and up to 4 GSM SIM slots (that can be active simultaneously), so I wouldn't be surprised if you could even use both at the same time.

If the wireless situation doesn't resolve itself in the next few years, I suspect that it will drive software defined radio deployment to the masses. One phone with one antenna and chunk of silicon that can speak on any network, software permitting.
It's about the culture of using prepaid vs contract phones, ie it's not like carriers don't understand ARPU, it's subscribers who stay away from contracts.