David Lentz

Unlocking the Case of the Missing iPhones

And I suppose I should (with no small amount of embarrassment) mention that I went back and revisited Minster's analysis, and it also indicates a substantial number of unlocked iPhones (falling a bit under a million, but close enough at 838,000). My inclination is to believe that Apple will deal with this situation via one of the above listed methods, to the extent that they are not prohibited by their agreement with AT&T.

I would expect AT&T to be even more eager than Apple to see the unlocking reduced, perhaps it will even spur them to better serve their customers. (I know, such thinking is most unlike Ma Bell, but maybe it is possible) A rapid push to expand their HSDPA cellular network and include it in their existing contracts at no increase in cost would help them a lot. But in gazing upon a flyer for their U-Verse DSL service, it sure looks like their pricing is concocted in some alternate universe, one without out capacity and populated by consumers with unlimited ability to pay. So any hopes of AT&T contributing to reducing the pressures to unlock are pretty faint.