Re: Verizon Business - LTE?

[Joel Jaeggli <joelja () bogus com>]

On Aug 16, 2011, at 9:40 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:53:24 EDT, Christopher Morrow said:
>
> > anyway, they do these donkey things because they can :( people have no
> > real option (except not to play the game, ala war games).
>
> My brother recently tried to get a smartphone without a data plan (as the
> phone he wanted was also Wifi-capable, and he was *quite* willing to be able
> to do data-type stuff only when in range of an access point because he's in
> range of one 95% of the time he'd want to use data features).  But at least
> one vendor said they wouldn't activate a phone under those conditions.
>
> Anybody got a good pairing of Android-based smartphone and vendor willing
> to play that game?

Buy a stand-alone device.

Plug your t-mobile sim into it. 

The subsidy on a nominally $600 phone is predicated on you spending $80 or so a month on service. last lightly used 
nexus one I ebayed was ~$200, you can accumulate a whole stable of them for what you'd otherwise pay the carrier for 
the privledge.