Weird, because they seem to have the same prices as Verizon.
And somehow an iPhone today isn't cheaper than when it first came out and there was no subsidy from Cingular.
I thought all the major carrier did away with phone subsidies years ago so they could advertise lower monthly service fees, when those prices were becoming too high.
My phone is still subsidized, but it's through work, so I'm not the one paying the monthly bill. I didn't even think that was still an option for the average user buying on their own. Before switching my phone over to work, I had been buying unlocked phones at full price for a few years.
Google wrote to the FCC and made a binding commitment to bid at least $4.3 billion if the final rules included certain open access rules. The FCC then included those rules, thus guaranteeing they would get at least $4.3 billion.
Verizon outbid Google and so got that spectrum along with those open access requirements, which included no SIM locking.
In 2018 Verizon, citing fraud concerns, asked the FCC to relax the no locking rule. The FCC agreed, allowing a 60 day lock.