I had to read this article about the AT&T lawyers telling the FCC that early termination fees for mobile phones are good for consumers a couple times (including the Ars Technica article it links to) to make sure I understood what AT&T’s lawyers were saying. Specifically, Gizmodo cut to the heart of the matter with this:

“In this case, with the iPhone 3G, it [subsidies and early termination fees] basically lets you walk away with a iPhone 3G that you can use on T-Mobile for $374.”

So think about that; should this scenario be true, you would be able to buy an ATT-less iPhone 3G for $199+$174 early termination fee — that’s less than the locked version one iPhone. We live in interesting pricing times.

Lest anyone get too excited, it seems to me that the authors left out some details, namely that the iPhone 3G would have to be unlocked for it to work on T-Mobile. I don’t think AT&T’s early termination fee is going to do that for you, nor will iTunes activate your iPhone 3G on T-Mobile. And this is still a GSM device, meaning you’ll never use your iPhone 3G on Verizon’s CDMA network.

But assuming that third parties will develop unlocking software for the iPhone 3G just as they did for the original iPhone, this technique could make entrepreneurial iPhone exporters very happy — they’ll get a nice price cut too.