Originally Posted by
mark-d The concept of a 24 month contract is farcical and just screws the customer to a bum deal.
If you sign up for Sky TV you sign a 12 month contract. If you sign up for broadband you sign a 12 month contract. If you sign up for cable TV again it's a 12 month contract. All those come with the TV decoder box or the modem/router but just a 12 month contract.
If you sign up for a mobile phone contract you sign up for double the length of those contracts knowing it will cost a fortune to buy out mid-term.
How often does a new TV box come out? Compare that to a new phone and you can see that the rate at which phones launch the 24 month contract means people end up with vastly outdated phones by the time their contract renenewal comes up.
I don't know in America but in the UK this has all happened since the iPhone launch IMHO. Before that you could barter with the network for a decent deal, get decent minutes, texts and internet for whatever handset. When O2 introduced the iPhone they set out the tarrifs in a take it or leave it manner. They had an exclusive with the iPhone so there was no choice.
Now the other networks have the iphone but rather than competing they just joined in and set out their iphone tarrifs in a take it or leave it manner. Give or take a couple of hundred texts in the bundle the packages are nearly identical accross the networks.
What has now happened though is that no matter what phone you want you are more or less sold the tarrif on a take it or leave it basis with little and more likely no room for negociation.
Contract lengths have doubled, the value is not what it was anymore and people end up with outdated handsets that are two years old and probably twice surpassed since they got them by the time their contract expires.
Rant over!