I work for TMo.. I know the whole upgrade thing sucks. Trust me. This is the BASICS of it.
Every phone has a true cost.. One that as a customer your RARELY going to see. Now with cell phone companies their revenue does NOT come from any merchandise at all. In fact, its one of the rare retail enviornments that you acutally loose money off inital purchases, however, your monthly recurring charge multiplied by your contract duration usually offsets this. So basically, a FREE razor to you, is a -$179.99 hit to the company. So if you only pay 39.99 a month, your looking at at LEAST 5 months of service JUST to break even, and that doesnt even keep in mind that it takes approx $200 bucks of network costs, man hours, etc to add you to the network initially as well. So out of a 2 year contract most customers net the company like an avg of 15 bucks a month. SO... if you sign a contract at first, get a discount on the phone, thats a loss to us, and statistics state how long you have to be with us to just BREAK even, not even make a big profit. Now if you keep taking out a free phone that has a cost of 200 bucks every 6 months, what does that do to the revenue of you as a customer... pretty much puts you in the negative. So therefore, most times, you sign a contract and the company wants you to serve out that contract to make you a profitable customer, in which case we then reward you with another "FULL" discounted phone in trade for another promise for you to be profitable (contract extention). The longer you wait, the more profit, the higher the discount.. You want a curve at 100 bucks? The company looses approx 350 bucks on that deal.. Thats a YEAR or more of service to make that loss, much less make a profit.
If you understand how SERVICE industries work.. it makes sense. It SUCKS sometimes, but it makes sense. There are MANY workarounds for this.. pin or email me if you have questions, I will be happy to answer. We are excited to have the curve, and ive sold quite a few already.
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