Apple: Free the iPhone from AT&T Monopoly
Dear Mr. Steve Jobs: Since you released the iPhone on June 29, 2007, millions of consumers have been forced to use AT&T for their phone service. It doesn't matter that the iPhone can work on other networks; you struck a devil's deal with just AT&T and their monopoly has allowed them to deliver substandard service without fear of an iPhone user defecting to another carrier. AT&T's poor service has especially affected the hundreds of thousands of us who are on the GoPhone pre-paid plan on our iPhones. At least twice in the past three months, AT&T allowed outages of their EDGE service, preventing us from accessing the Web and any iPhone application dependent on Web data. That means no email, no web browsing, no map searches, among other things. In both situations. the EDGE outage apparently only affected users on the GoPhone pre-paid plan. And we suspect there may be similar incidents in the future. Most times in America, when a company performs so poorly, the average consumer punishes such behavior by going to a competitor. This is sadly not the case with Apple and AT&T. We are victims of your monopoly. The iPhone uses GSM technology that should allow it to work on other wireless networks, including overseas. But Apple has configured the iPhone so you're forced to use it on AT&T. An iPhone purchased in the U.S. will only work on the AT&T network, regardless of what SIM card is placed in it -- it cannot be taken to another GSM network such as T-Mobile. Although it is legal, according to a decision from the U.S. Register of Copyrights, for American consumers to unlock their phones for use on whatever network they would like, Apple has taken away that right by locking the iPhone to AT&T's network and its substandard service. And maybe more importantly, AT&T's poor service is tarnishing Apple's brand. We the undersigned call on you to free us from the AT&T monopoly and unlock the iPhone so that we consumers can use it on networks other than AT&T. FREE US!
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