Cingular (at&t) has really bad service in Idaho. You can get (without roaming) near the Moscow and Couer d'Alene area, and down in the Treasure Valley (Boise area), but its pretty vacant in the rest except for spotty patches...at least 2 years ago this was the case anyways. I had Cingular for a couple years in Idaho, but only because I was on the nation plan and didn't incur out of network or long distance charges.

I don't know if this is the reason for the Idaho exception, but anyways....

I used to have AT&T before they merged with Cingular and the service was absolutely horrendous. The signal was bad everywhere, the phone would be roaming almost all the time. I don't know how it is now, but locking a phone to one company is a stupid move for any company in my book.

Actually, they have been the worst US carrier for the past decade...period. Terrible signal, terrible pricing, terrible customer service, etc etc. They took forever to become competitive and were one of the main reasons people lobbied for the ability to move their phone numbers between carriers. They acted like they had a monopoly, so we all left. Then, without customers, shock of shock, they went out of business. Until Cingular bought them and the name change.

The consumer voted AT&T wireless DEAD. This is why they paid whatever it took to have something signature for the newly restored AT&T, ergo the iPhone.

And it's why the iPhone's sales with so far below expectation at release.

Hatred of AT&T >> Interest in iPhone.

And even the massive price cut won't help as much as Jobs needs/hopes. The iPod became ubiquitous because it was available EVERYWHERE. The iPhone will lose the chance to gain that level of success, unless unbundled officially from AT&T soon. Because Nokia, etc. are all working on iPhone clones. And they will all be out, affordable, and available from whoever you want to buy one from/for long before the AT&T exclusive deal expires.

They can't. By LAW, we're allowed to unlock phones so that we CAN take them to other carriers. It's one of the few places where congress has done a good deed for the consumer. I'm AT&T's lobbyists are working million$ towards repealing this ASAP, but for now, there's not a damn thing AT&T can do.

And Apple only has to make good faith efforts to keep up their end of the deal. After all, it's in their best interests (and those of their stockholders) to sell as many iPhones as possible.

The iphone is a unique problem. I don't believe AT&T is subsidizing the cost of the units. For other phones, the carrier (not just AT&T) use the contract to help pay for the phone. Unlocking the phone is meaningless to them once you've signed up for a two-year contract, because that's what AT&T wants to have.

As for why Apple signed with AT&T? They needed a deal with a carrier to offer some of the features (only special one that I know of is visual voicemail, which is *NOT* available on an unlocked phone with any other carrier).

AT&T coverage: All carriers have areas where they are strong. New England has really good coverage with Verizon, because of the merger with Bell Atlantic Mobile. I had Sprint for a while, but it was spotty in both Florida and Massachusetts. The New England area is especially hard for coverage, because of the rock formation, which are not very good for cell signals. Not sure about other regions. But no carrier is great everywhere, so blaming the company for coverage in those areas is pointless. I'd love to blame Verizon for not offering FiOS in my neighborhood.

I will get flamed or this post wil get deleted (as usual), but:

Is posting this kind of info (or a link to this kind of info) and clearly supporting the info not illegal? Where I come from (somewhere in Europe), it is not legal...

How would you feel if AT&T or Apple posted a link and supported how to get Object Desktop for free because it doesn't run on OS-X, but on Microsoft OS or something like that. I know the comparision doesn't look too good, but it's the idee that counts here!

I suspect AT&T paid a huge amount to Apple to be the only partner and because of this expected a lot of new customers. So posting this info could loose them a lot of money. They earn the most money with the minutes called and not the contract's, so this doesnt matter much.

If this legal: way to go!! BUT if not then you should also post for example some torrent files how to get the last Object Desktop for free or something like that...

I think the legality is beside the point (although I believe that unlocking IS legal in the US even if a vendor makes it difficult).  This post is a news item that links to a demonstration of the iPhone being unlocked.  There is no real instruction though.

And since Apple, AT&T and T-Mobile all need to be paid to actually *USE* this hack, who is losing revenue or intellectual property and where is the crime?

I'm going to bet that there will be a race for the next few years as Apple locks down the iPhone and folks who want some freedom unlock it.

It is legal (if you read all the replies)!

Piracy is however not!

In Australia the A Triple C [ACCC] determined/declared that the Region-Coding of DVDs was a restriction of trade and thus illegal.

External Laws/agreements restricted/prohibited the importation of Region-free DVD players into Australia....but once there people were entirely free to alter them for Region-Free use....even factory-supported and warranted.

My bet is the iPhone unlocking issue is also Legal for the same determination, though, not giving a damn about Mac products, particularly over-hyped hysteria-fed ones....I haven't bothered to check....

Even if you unlock the iPhone, Verizon and Alltel users can't use them because the iPhone takes a SIM Card and Verizon and Alltel don't use the SIM Cards in their phones. So you can't use this on ANY network you want.

but...but...It's so cool!   

I thought Verizon started taking SIM cards (on select phones).  I could be wrong.   jpkylegirl shrugs

But you CAN use it on T-Mobile which is the best cell service provider right now, imho.