Art,

The article you posted a link to was a good read. One issue that is not discussed in the article is how to bring competition to the wireless, cable, and internet delivery industry. In the USA over the past twenty years almost all laws that ensured free competition have been removed by lobbyists. 20 years ago a corporation could only own a handful of TV and radio stations. Now a few corporations own all but a handful of tv and radio stations. Comcast has been buying a lot of tv network assets, and ATT is buying direct TV. The wireless and broadcast television bandwidths are all tied up by a few corporations. The only option is fiber to the house, and in most of the USA that fiber or cable is owned by the same corporation that now owns the cable or satellite provider, who owns the broadcasters. My head hurts seeing free market policies of the USA being eliminated by corporate lobbyists.

My phone was lost or stolen a week ago in Alaska. I am going to replace it- but I am amazed how easy I have functioned without a cell phone. My bill is $177 a month for two lines, I would love to eliminate that monthly bill.

I don't receive official updates, I'm rooted with custom firmware.

The main reason you won't find a lot of the unlocked devices for Verizon and Sprint is that they each use their own CDMA chip versus literally every other carrier in the world that uses GSM. Google stated that it didn't want to create Nexus devices for CDMA due to the lower number of sales for those handsets versus the version that will work almost everywhere.

normally i dont feel i need to root because android does everything pretty well when left alone. they spend time engineering a phone to work with a specific version so its the updated that cause the issues, i wish i could just turn that off. they ruined the htc my wife and i had last time the same way, worked perfect for years and then did a push and it was flaky the whole rest of the time till i got tired of the phone and the battery was dieing so i got the s4.

What? You don't think they "designed" a flaw to cause the phone to work in such weird ways that would cause the customer to buy a new one?

Remember, they have designed a incandescent light bulb that would last for YEARS, but they chose not to because it would hurt sales.(until LED came along) Same thing with fuel efficient engines. The princes in Saudi Arabia wouldn't be rich today with engines that get 60-80MPG.

YB,

I don't think the information provided to you on why Verizon does offer the Google Nexus 5 is correct. The Google Nexus 5 is available on Sprint, which is also a CDMA network. Verizon has much larger customer base than Sprint. What I read was Verizon does not want its customers to have easy access to unlocked phones; unlocked phones may allow customers to migrate without a lot of pain or payments.

Hmm good point. I just looked at the specs here on the Nexus 5, and the phone covers all the bands that Verizon uses (indicated here). So I guess then a big FU Verizon! is called for.

I think the info I had was from when the Nexus 4 released. You can see here that it doesn't support CDMA at all. Which I was highly disappointed in because I had its predecessor, the Galaxy Nexus, and had wanted to just stick to Nexus devices.

the joke is on them if they did it on purpose i never get the expensive ones. i just wait till best buy has what i want on sale for cheap or free.

Quick update, after days of research, I found that purchasing a SmartPhone is a very challenging task. The retailers all have many hidden fees and contracts that are simply to complex to understand- and in the end very little difference between contracts. Doing a BYOD is also daunting, as many used phones are stolen or have hidden problems.

I ended up purchasing a unused Galaxy S5 that was in a AT&T box. T-mobile said it had a clean ESN, so I took the risk buying it at $300. The Seller said he won it at a raffle... my gut told me the story may have been shady. The other issue is the T-mobile has a great IP voice app loaded on their smartphones. It is only available for T-mobile branded phones- so I am unable to use wifi to make or receive calls unless I install a third party app.

Samsungs are great phones. I just recently bought an S4 after I broke my S3. Tater recently upgraded to the S5 and loves it.

I always get the ESN from the seller and check it with Verizon before buying a device from someone. If they refuse to give it, they lose a sale.