– People are cutting back and not spending.

– People I know are making due with what they have.

– People are making the stuff they have last longer.

(As a sign of the times shoe and car repair businesses are thriving).

– When Nokia’s quarterly profits were down 90% this year, that tells me people are not buying phones.

– When Apple/AT&T slashed the price of the iPhone, that tells me people are not buying high end handsets.

– When a well-made, expensive to manufacture phone (the TP2) is sold by Verizon for $199 on a two-year contract, and $350 by T-Mobile (when it should sell for $500 to $600 on a two-year deal), that tells me people are not buying handsets.

– And there are only so many people willing to wait in line and over pay for an iPhone (and get reamed on a two-year plan). IMHO people have wised up. They are no longer willing to get a free phone only to get reamed on a two year plan. That’s the power of the Net, people talking about getting duped or getting consumed with the must-have phone, only to end up paying $3500 for a plan over two years.

For the majority of consumers, who can barely make ends meet each month, $3000 to $4000 for two years of cell phone service is being stupid.

– Bottom line is that people want a great phone for $200 and they want cheap plans. The fastest way to impending doom is for T-Mo to raise prices and nickel and dime customers with charges here and charges there.

– Like others said, T-Mo should be lowering its unlimited data plan price, not raising it. With lower prices they can attract and increase customer share. In these hard economic times people will flock to where the savings are. They are not flocking to whoever has the hottest handset. People are shopping for the plans, not the phones.

– Fact is there are few people who will stick with AT&T simply because it has the iPhone. Those days are over.

McDonald’s became a success because it sold cheap food, but to millions (and eventually billions) of customers.

The key to success in these hard times is to become known as the low-priced carrier.

The worst thing T-Mo could do is to start “taxing” its customers to death.

Consumers react and take action when getting reamed.

Look what happened to the airlines. With fare hikes and customers being charged for toilet tissue, so to speak, people stopped flying. Gone were the vacation flights.

When fuel got to $4 a gallon, people stopped driving, except for essential commuting.

And with banks pulling their stunts (decreasing credit limits and raising interest rates) people no longer buy on credit.

And with cable TV services, people are disconnecting their sets (and using Netflix).

Cable modems are being discarded for way less expensive DSL services.

If T-Mo starts taxing its customers they are going to cut back to having only the most basic of services and eventually they will go to which ever carrier has the lowest rates.

Instead of pointing out the long term positives in this change that caused a great deal of this current “financial crisis” in the quarterly numbers, the company just reacts as if the world is coming to an end & everything must be changed to try to fix this problem.

Another case in point, twice this year T-Mobile has changed it’s mind on policy changes when it “found out” they would be unpopular. Not being able to backdate your rate-plan to the beginning of the current cycle to help cover overages that haven’t yet billed & the Paper Bill Fee. Anyone with half a quarter of a brain could’ve told the company that these two policies would be reacted to negatively. HELLO!!

As far a phones go, unless the merger with Sprint goes forward, I don’t believe T-mobile has much more to offer than the kind of handsets it is currently. Handset manufactures make there money on the sale of phones. If they can get there top of the lines on the largest networks but sell them to the networks for a little less then the law of volume makes more money for them & greater market penetration for higher sales down the road. Verison 90+ million, ATT 85+ million, Sprint 45+ million, T-mobile 33+ million. Who would you decide to send your best to. If T-Mobile had the extra 45 million from Sprint, it would be very hard for Apple to NOT allow T-Mobile to have the iPhone instead of Verison. Apple will not have to create a CDMA version for just one company & would have nearly as many customers to sell to as well. Win for Apple, T-Mobile Inc. & current Sprint customers as they will have a much better time dealing with T-Mobile than the current Customer No-Service they get now.