Financial Times, Wall Street Journal

SMARTPHONES AND THE MOBILE MONEY PIT

As operators are subsidizing smartphones to attract new customers to a growing extent, their break-even points are drifting further into the distance. For example, it takes AT&T 17 months to break even with a mobile customer to which it has provided Apple’s iPhone, reports FT. In an attempt to grapple with the profitability drop, operators are trying to pass on some of the cost to their customers by implementing tiered billing with data-traffic limits. This, in turn, has telecom customers struggling with increased monthly costs, and more complicated subscription plans.