Can I buy an iPhone off a current Cingular Customer?

[buymeaniphone]

Ok, so I'm still hoping that I'll be able to get my hands on an iPhone without having to sign up for Cingular. Now my question is this, and hopefully there are some Cingular employees who can help me out here: If I have a friend thats due a phone upgrade, could he in theory, upgrade to an iPhone and sell it to me? Of course I'm hoping someone will be able to unlock it and I know that my friend will have to sign another 2 year agreement but thats besides the point, I'm just wondering if this would work.

I actually did this a while back for my Treo 650, my friend got an upgrade and I was able to get the Treo for $140 when everyone else was selling them for $300. I just got the phone unlocked and now use it with Tmobile.

 

[r6girl]

the big if is whether or not it can be unlocked. you may want to wait a little while to see if someone manages that. my thinking is that apple will make unlocking it pretty difficult, if not impossible. if someone does manage to unlock it, your plan may work. the person you buy it from will most likely need to extend their current contract for an additional 2 years in order to buy the iphone to begin with, as you've stated, but there's nothing that says they *have* to use the iphone once they buy it so they could sell it to you and still use their old phone.

i wouldn't gamble on buying one through a friend before you know it can be unlocked, though. it could take some time (a few months, maybe) before someone figures out how to break the carrier lock...

 

[tkidBOSTON]

Another point is that there is no evidence of a discounted price on the iphone to those signing up for a new contract. So there might not be any incentive to have your friend get it versus you getting it yourself.

We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[feelthefire]

another thing to consider is the iPhone will probably operate on a special plan, so your friend will have to be paying for iPhone service he's not using to buy the phone (since it only comes with a 2 year contract) and he can't just drop the contract since I'm sure there's some time for which you have to keep and use the equipment.

 

[buymeaniphone]

another thing to consider is the iPhone will probably operate on a special plan

Thats so true, I didn't think about that. We don't know for sure that there will be a special plan for the iPhone, but if there is then my plan probably won't work. I guess we'll have to see.