an unlocked GooglePhone?
I’m not going to add to the tonnes of material already out there on the GooglePhone, see TC for the best articles on it and the evolving story.
I’m more interested in the unlocked aspect of this topic. There is another interesting snippet from Fred Wilson where he states people are happy to buy unlocked phones in the US. This may well be true in a country where network quality differs quiet a lot. However as a resident of Belgium, we HAVE to buy unlocked phones – its a legal issue here – carriers can’t subsidize phones which I think is pretty bad for the consumer when it comes to adopting the latest smartphones – you get charged €575 (well north of $650) for an unlocked iPhone in Belgium and then you gota pay a data rate plus voice plan – at same rates as elsewhere. Compare that to the Netherlands where you can get iPhones for less than €200 which comes with cheaper data/voice plans! Our carriers are pretty good in most cases, its fair to say most European carriers are quiet competitive in coverage and quality now, so there is less excuse for getting unlocked phones.
So this leads us to Googles plans for selling directly. If they don’t subsidize the phone somehow, I can’t see it selling in many European countries where subsidies are normal and network coverage is strong. They could price cut the phone in many ways, advertising being one or just not taking a profit on the hardware would be a close second perhaps. Thats could be very aggressive, if Google sell at cost then the thing should come in unlocked at a similar price to the subsidized competitors, but thats a tough pill to swallow for the hardware partners signed up to Android.
For the sake of all the Belgians out there, lets hope Google sell a well priced unlocked phone so we can taste Android without the bad after-taste.
