What I am saying, is that your ISP charges you for a line to your house, maybe a modem and possibly a router, depending on the company and options. But once the service is there, you can use it for your desktop, the laptop, your tablet and phone, your PS3, even a VoIP phone. You pay for a data connection to the net, but what devices use it and how you digest that data is up to you. They don't charge you for every device on your network.
Your Cable company provides the pipe to your house for TV. They can charge you for each box that provides additional features, PPV, DVR, etc. But the data line itself, can be shared with other TV's that do not require the boxes. And you don't get charged for each TV that you split the signal to, any more than you pay for each computer on your network that shares your internet service.
You pay for a landline to be installed to your house. They wire it to your junction box, and from there you can run a line to every room in your home and have a Sports Illustrated football phone in each room. You just pay for the one line in. Only time they charge you for more, is for a separate phone number, or if you want the service calls to extend past the line in and go to individual jacks. But if you just want the line in, you pay for that line and can share it with as many rooms and phones as you want.
The point is that at one time, that was not how these things worked. Each of those tried the business model of charging you for the line and each device connected to it. Not for the boxes, but for the "use" of it on another device. And that all went away.
I pay for the internet, let me decide what computer(s) I want to use it on, and I do.
I pay for TV, let me decide what room I want to watch it in, and I do.
I pay for a landline, let me decide what rooms I want to have it available in, and I do.
But cell phones are newer, they are where those other devices were 20 years ago, and they in turn will catch up with the times, because consumers will demand it. And if they don't fill it, someone else will see that void and demand in the marketplace and step in and capitalize on it, and once they do that, the bigger names will have to follow suit. All it takes is that first company to be bold enough to take that step, and the rest won't have a choice but to follow suit in order to stay competitive.
THAT is Capitalism at work.
They do what they do only because some lawyer put it in the contract, but contracts will change, the market will change and it isn't gonna last. They tried it everywhere else and it never lasts because charging you for the same thing multiple times is something that you can only get away with for so long... People will get sick of being nickled and dimed to death.
