Apple iPhone 5 US Carrier Comparison Chart (opens in new tab)

Looks like AT&T is still the only option for simultaneous voice+data, though, due to antenna limitations: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/09/still-no-simultaneous-v...

Even if you use a lot of data? Seems like Sprint would be the best choice in that case.

Verizon doesn't do rollover minutes month to month though which is very annoying.

AT&T used to allow iPhone users an upgrade annually for the new iPhone despite being on a two-year contract. I'm not sure if they have for this round, but every other year, they simply changed upgrade eligibility for iPhone users right before the iPhone came out.

The problem is that this is very expensive. An iPhone costs $650 and you get it for $200. That means that the carrier is eating $450. Even if you argue that a carrier is getting a discount and it's only costing them $300-350, they have to earn that back. $300-350 over 12 months is $25-29.17 per month that they have to earn back, plus interest. So, you have a $30 data plan, and only $0.83-$5 of that is going to actually implementing, maintaining, etc. the network. If they're subsidizing the device by $400, giving you an upgrade ever 12 months would mean taking a loss of $40 not including the cost of creating and maintaining the network.

So, it's quite detrimental to a company's bottom line to offer that to the point that it isn't wonderfully feasible. Sure, you can say that it gets you the voice plans of those people who switch and maybe that can go to the subsidy as well and whatnot, but the margins are thin. I'm quite literally paying $40/mo for my iPhone plan as an add-on to a family plan (plus 1/5th of $20 for texting ($4) and 1/5th of $70 for voice ($14)). So, I'm paying a total of $58 and getting a $450 discount on the device. $450 over 12 months is $37.50 plus interest and so I would only be paying $20.50 per month for my actual usage. Even if I bring my own phone, there isn't a carrier that would give me a price near that low.

Frankly, I think it would be better for uses to pay the $649 up-front and have cheaper plans (and this does happen in many countries and can happen here if you want to buy the iPhone 5 for T-Mobile). However, even there I wouldn't be getting such a value. T-Mobile offers 500 minutes plus texting plus 2GB of data for $50/mo. For $8 more on a family plan, I'm getting $450 off my device which even if I can only upgrade every 24 months is an $18.75/mo value.

It would definitely be a huge differentiator. AT&T did this for many years to keep Apple fans happy and to prevent their yelling from overwhelming the press around the new device. However, it's really expensive. Even if you gained more customers, it likely wouldn't be worth it.

In Canada, it would be great if they started 2 year contracts like the USA.

Or just buy it unlocked and use Straight Talk (which is AT&T).

Imagine if they just gave you the phone, no contract. Someone is eating that cost. In the US, you get a subsidy on the phone, but you also get locked in. That's how the industry works and no one really does anything different (TMobile tried for a while).

Only if you live in an area covered by LTE. In my area, city of ~250,000, there is no LTE or plans to implement but I usually have four to five bars on 3G. Seemingly the 3G connection strength would be a good thing but I get 3G data speeds comparable to dial up. If I am not connected to wifi, the data features (Siri, dictation, pic/vid texts etc. etc.) are virtually useless. Trying to browse the internet is also a pointless task about 75% of the time. The unlimited data offered by Sprint is moot point if you can't use LTE.

The biggest drawback for Sprint is their abysmal LTE coverage. They bet too early on with WiMAX and lost out on the LTE train. It's going to be a good long while before they're caught up there.

It's even better when you realize you don't have to get the full unlimited plan and can save $30 by getting the 450 plan.

Especially for those of us with grandfathered SERO accounts :)

Because the combined eBay/PayPal fees are 10%, and you also have to pay $199 for the phone.

In short, nothing. CNET does a nice job at explaining the early upgrade situation. http://news.cnet.com/8301-33620_3-57512788-278/for-iphone-5-...

Do you have to give the phone back when you terminate?

If you can do that, why would anyone be willing to pay $400 on eBay?

Not relevant to LTE devices AFIAK, but I bought my Android phone outright and have it on the $30/month T-mo unlimited data, text, 100 mins plan. Couldn't be happier with it. Amazed to think I was spending over $100 with AT&T before.

Looks like Virgin has announced their pricing for Australia but not for the US: http://www.virginmobile.com.au/iphone

Virgin's iPhone5 will likely remain a better value than any subscription option mentioned in the article. Unfortunately Sprint (and therefore Virgin) can't get close to Verizon's US 4G coverage.

Same here. I'm curious to know what Sprint LTE coverage will be like once it launches here in Southern California. Hopefully it's better than their 3G coverage/equivalent speeds compared to other carriers (Virgin is on Sprint's network).

Has Virgin confirmed iPhone 5? The only one I've seen so far is Cricket. I'm just hoping that the $25 unlimited data & messaging with 300 minutes plan is available!

There's no point in adding Straight Talk at this time because official word (via their Twitter) is that they do not have nano SIMs and they have no (announce-able) plans to sell nano SIMs at this time.

Micro-SIMs cannot be cut down to nano-SIM dimensions and be used.

Also Cricket/Leap Wireless which is the only iPhone 5 announced yet

StraightTalk doesn't have LTE. I'm not sure if an iPhone 4S claims it is using 4G as it does on AT&T.

By itself? Probably not. I leave LTE disabled on my Galaxy Nexus to save battery life most of the time. I can't even remember the last time I turned it on. It's nice for tethering I suppose but for normal usage it's not worth the battery cost. If you're on AT&T HSPA+ is actually fairly close to LTE speeds already though the latency is generally higher. I see about 7-8Mbit/sec on Verizon LTE and about 4-5Mbit/sec on AT&T HSPA+ -- not a huge difference.

Same as other guy said. It's so much better than wifi that I leave wifi off all the time (thanks unlimited data!). I can stream netflix/hbogo in high quality with no issues.

It's pretty sweet.

It's typically faster than any Wifi I can connect to. So yeah, absolutely.

Cherry-picking one number and comparing it to another country by converting the dollar amount is a ridiculous and meaningless comparison.

Looking on here:

http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/pay_monthly/24_months/Medi...

It looks like the cost is $70/month for unlimited text/voice and 1 GB of data. That doesn't seem much cheaper at all to me.

I was shocked at the dropped call rates. I can't recall the last time I got a dropped call, a 4.6% has to bee annoying.

If a Verizon account has been in good standing for at least 60 days, supposedly they'll unlock your device: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57361283-266/will-verizon-...

Here's the AT&T unlock request page for anyone looking to unlock their out-of-contract iPhone4(S): https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/

I put in my request yesterday, but it has yet to go through...

Share everything is the only current option.

If you're going to Canada a lot, your best option would be the AT&T iPhone as the Verizon iPhone won't support Canadian LTE bands.

Thats the default option on store.apple.com. I jumped from AT&T to VZW, and they put you on the Share Everything with no other option

They had the info when I was checking out. I don't remember the specific amounts of data, but the rates were +$20 and +$50 per month to your plan.

I felt that was a disingenuous part of the chart. The author said that FaceTime only worked over cellular for AT&T when you moved to a shared data plan, but always worked on Verizon. That's technically true, but only really because Verizon won't offer customers subsidized pricing without moving to a shared data plan.

From Verizon's perspective, if you pay their post-pay rates and bring your own iPhone, you're paying them an additional $18+/mo since they don't have to cover the subsidy. As such, if you have a grandfathered plan, they care less since you're basically paying for a higher rate plan by not using a subsidy.

Corrected that part. Thanks.

AT&T isn't forcing customers to change plans (at least not during this upgrade cycle). Verizon is requiring shared data plans for upgrades, but AT&T is allowing grandfathered users to keep their plans. AT&T is, however, throttling past 5GB, but they're doing that whether you upgrade or not, IIRC.

Does anyone know what sorts of speeds I can expect with throttling?

It's not. That's why the iPhone 5 has GSM bands supported as well.

No current network supports VoLTE so I'm not sure this can be confirmed yet.

Yeah, same here. I do this all the time. The fact that AT&T is the cheapest option for me ($75/month for unlimited data, 450min, 1000 sms) and that it's the only one here that does this basically forced me to keep it. — Now, I just have to figure out how to unlock my phone (@cutyoursim?) and whether or not I want to rent a phone for LTE or just get a SIM Card whenever I travel.

Incentive to move multiple devices to a single plan. Reduces attrition.