Why prepay $450 for Nokia Lumia 920 to AT&T?

[WP8fan]

Hi, I was wondering why anybody would pay AT&T (USA) $450 upfront for Lumia 920 to be month-to-month? They still pay the same rate as someone on the two-year contract, right? From what I understand that phone is not compatible with T-Mobile bands. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[anon(5335877)]

1. They're in the middle of a contract and don't have an available upgrade.
2. They want to use it on a prepaid carrier like AT&T GoPhone or a prepaid MVNO like Straight Talk or NET10 where the monthly cost is lower than AT&T postpaid.
3. They live in an area where T-Mobile has refarmed HSPA to the PCS band, which the 920 does support.

 

[rdubmu]

Also there are reports that At&t is unlocking some Lumia 920's. I bought my Lumia 920 at full price because I wasn't do for an upgrade.

 

[WP8fan]

Alpinestars1z, thank you! That makes sense now. I'll do more research on the Lumia 920 then.

 

[zfarooq]

Because:

(a) I travel a lot, need an unlocked device to use local sim so no roaming charges

(2) Off-contract pricing is cheaper than on-contract, i.e. $50/month vs. the higher on contract pricing

It is much cheaper in the long-run if you take the two on top in account. Also, I'm able to sell my device a lot easier worldwide usually every year to upgrade.

 

[WP8fan]

Because:
(2) Off-contract pricing is cheaper than on-contract, i.e. $50/month vs. the higher on contract pricing

When you say cheaper monthly price are you referring to MVNO (like NET10) pricing or AT&T? Do you get LTE with that price? Thanks.

 

[pseudoware]

Yeah, you can likely sell it later, and the net amount might end up being close to the subsidized price but w/o the contract.
I paid less than $450 new in March, and my 920 now has a t mobile sim card.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[nikhilr51]

Not sure how it works in America. But in Australia MVNOs are much cheaper compared to the big 3 carriers.

Eg.
A Lumia 920 on contract over 2 years = $65*24 = $1,560
A 920 bought outright then on a pay as you go plan with an MVNO = $550 + 11(24) = $814

 

[darkoman4]

Not sure how it works in America. But in Australia MVNOs are much cheaper compared to the big 3 carriers.

Eg.
A Lumia 920 on contract over 2 years = $65*24 = $1,560
A 920 bought outright then on a pay as you go plan with an MVNO = $550 + 11(24) = $814

It's same here, just it seams that we don't have as many GSM MVNOs as we have CDMA ones, and that means specific device for specific MVNO. But there are some like NET10, Straight Talk and so on that use GSM and HSPA as well as Tmobile prepaid that use any unlocked phones and save you money in the long run. But then again if MVNO is runing on T-Mobile network, it won't get HSPA speeds with ATT hardware in most of the USA. Only Edge. Long story short, it is complicated.

 

[anon(5335877)]

When you say cheaper monthly price are you referring to MVNO (like NET10) pricing or AT&T? Do you get LTE with that price? Thanks.

I think he's talking about MVNOs. No, you usually don't get LTE. I think T-Mobile Prepaid, which really isn't an MVNO, allows it's users to access LTE. Possibly some (but I guess not all) T-Mobile MVNOs will allow LTE access too according to this:

T-Mobile MVNOs confirm prepaid LTE as soon as network is live | Android Central

I am not aware of any AT&T MVNOs that have access to LTE. AT&T doesn't even allow GoPhone or it's Aio Wireless customers to access LTE. AT&T LTE is postpaid only for now.

Sprint is the only other carrier that I'm aware of that will allow some of it's MVNOs to access the LTE network. Of course, the Lumia 920 won't work there since the voice network is CDMA.

Not sure how it works in America. But in Australia MVNOs are much cheaper compared to the big 3 carriers.

Eg.
A Lumia 920 on contract over 2 years = $65*24 = $1,560
A 920 bought outright then on a pay as you go plan with an MVNO = $550 + 11(24) = $814

Pretty much the same here. You just have to be aware that when an MVNO says "unlimited" it's probably not unlimited. You also most likely will not have roaming, and customer service usually (but not always) is poor. I don't think our MVNOs are that cheap though. What does $11AUD get you on a MVNO there?

 

[nikhilr51]

It's same here, just it seams that we don't have as many GSM MVNOs as we have CDMA ones, and that means specific device for specific MVNO.

Thats always intrigued me how you guys still have CDMA networks (we phased them out in the 1990s I think).
Here ANY phone you buy can be used on ANY network. (Some very cheap phones like the lumia 520 won't give you as good rural coverage with some carriers due to the lack of support for certain frequency bands, but you'll still get 3G in cities)

I don't think our MVNOs are that cheap though. What does $11AUD get you on a MVNO there?

$11 gets you 1.5gb 3G data (LTE is a couple of bucks more)
$500 worth of calls
Unlimited sms

Directly from the big carriers are more expensive however, i'm paying $60 (+$5 for phone) a month for 1GB 4G data, $600 worth of calls and unlimited text. So the MVNOs are sooo much cheaper.

Edit: I say 3G data, but i think you guys call 3G "4G". 3G for us is HSDPA/HSPA+ and 4G is LTE.

 

[anon(5335877)]

Thats always intrigued me how you guys still have CDMA networks (we phased them out in the 1990s I think).
Here ANY phone you buy can be used on ANY network. (Some very cheap phones like the lumia 520 won't give you as good rural coverage with some carriers due to the lack of support for certain frequency bands, but you'll still get 3G in cities)

I think Telstra didn't phase out their CDMA network until 2008. I think carriers in the states chose CDMA because it's backwards compatible with the old analog networks they were still running and had to keep running, I think until 2008 because the FCC required it. By this time, I don't think it made any sense to switch your entire network over to GSM or WCDMA. Everyone would need a new phone, and other services that rely on the CDMA network (like OnStar, for cars) would cease to function. In addition, Verizon was already planning to roll out LTE, which is pretty much what the rest of the world will be using. I really do wish everyone ran the same network, but I doubt it'll ever happen. Even with LTE, everyone's using a different frequency.

$11 gets you 1.5gb 3G data (LTE is a couple of bucks more)
$500 worth of calls
Unlimited sms

Directly from the big carriers are more expensive however, i'm paying $60 (+$5 for phone) a month for 1GB 4G data, $600 worth of calls and unlimited text. So the MVNOs are sooo much cheaper.

Edit: I say 3G data, but i think you guys call 3G "4G". 3G for us is HSDPA/HSPA+ and 4G is LTE.

Wow, that's pretty good. I don't know of anything like that here. And it's nice that they let you upgrade to LTE for a fee. The two largest carriers here won't give any MVNO LTE. You have to be postpaid.