Cingular Giving Away 18 mo. Service With iPhone?

Well, that's the rumor going around. And as a former wireless industry insider, I can tell you ... it just might be true.

First, there's been no mention of whether or not Cingular/AT&T is subsidizing the cost on the iPhone. If this story is true, than I would suspect that they are not, which allows them to give you "free" service to lock you into a contract. But here's the thing, they'll probably just give you the free basic phone service. Data? Messaging? Any other feature you'll want to make full use of the phone? Be prepared to pay.

Why do this? Well, the actual phone service isn't a high-margin deal for the "T" anyway. Data and text messages are far more profitable, so why not give away the phone service as a loss-leader?

Just wanted to throw that out there quickly. School is a bear this quarter, thus, my quietness. I'll probably blog a bit from the Vanishing Point event this weekend. I can live-blog it, so stay tuned! Maybe you'll even see stuff from the inside of the VIP party!