Say Goodbye to Cell Phone Subsidies: You'll pay retail for your smartphone, but you may save on your plan

摘要

IN RECENT YEARS, WIRELESS CARRIERS have vied for smartphone market share by offering flexibility: no-contract, lower-price service plans for customers willing to pay full price for a phone. Now, with nearly every cell phone user a smartphone user, providers are applying that model to all their plans, eliminating the hefty subsidies that longtime customers relied on to knock hundreds off the price of a phone.