is T-Mobile circumventing the normal ETF limits that carriers and the FCC have agreed to by creating these EIP's? it seems to me that the legality of these programs needs to be questioned and discussed, especially when they are combined with the $0 down offers and T-Mobile making it easier for more people to qualify for $0 down. Normal ETF's are capped at $350 by Verizon, AT&T, Sprint etc,and prior to these new programs T-Mobile actually had their ETF at $200. a normal ETF is decreased with each month of service, while the T-Mobile EIP does not and also does not factor in the depreciation of the phones, or any subsequent decreases in the full retail price that T-Mobile charges (ie, the Nexus 5 being released at $449 and after a few months the price dropped to $396). T-Mobile also locks all phones purchased through EIP to their network and they cannot be unlocked until the phone is paid off. so for example, even if you decide to sell your phone you have to hope that it is worth as much as the payoff amount, because otherwise you will still owe money and the person you sold it to won't be able to use it(unless you keep your account current and the buyer is also using t-mobile).
i believe this needs to be brought to peoples attention so all these people jumping over to T-Mobile can make better informed decisions.