Comment by lcw

The manufacturers have contractual agreements with certain carriers in specific regions and get reduced rates because of the purchase power of those markets. It's not ethical in my opinion especially if you want to have a lasting relationship with said manufactures, which we did, to purchase large amounts of those phones and then sell them to US carriers by changing carrier configuration. At the time we were receiving pre released flagship phones to test with. I see people arguing that it's a supply and demand problem and there is nothing wrong with it, but the reality is more like there is demand there, but at the time carries say in South America could make a quick Million USD off just dumping the phones to the US which leaves the people of that region unable to purchase flagship phones at reduced rates. I'm not sure if the economics are the same now, but that was my understanding at the time and I felt like it wasn't and ethical path forward.