Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Legal Aspects of "Those Cellular Phone Deals" Message-ID: <11300@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 24 Aug 90 08:29:55 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 28 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 592, Message 6 of 12 Ede writes: > I think the people that are doing most of the complaining are the > shops that specialize in cellular phones. They can't do the business > that the department stores do. Either they can't get the same sizeable > kickbacks, or choose not to apply it to the price of the phone, and > now they can no longer compete. I have a hard time feeling sorry for > them. In California, the whole flap over hardware tied to service arrangements came about from the squealing of service "resellers". These are middlemen who buy up banks of numbers from the provider and then work in conjunction with retailers. These agreements came up at the beginning of cellular service in the area, but seem to be on the wane. Resellers were complaining that they were being squeezed out, having to share more and more of their kickbacks with the retailer so that their "customers" could remain competitive with those doing business directly with the provider. What really hurt were those retail operations that were operated by the provider directly. As you might expect, if it were up to the provider, you would be given a phone for free if they could expect a certain level of usage in return. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !