The BIG MOBILE CON - 18 & 24 Month Contracts

nobby24

It's just swings and roundabouts, the longer the contract, the less the monthly fee and the price you pay for the phone. Probably the longer contracts are disguising a rate rise.

OneADay

Bit of a morbid thought - but wonder if the companies work out the odds of a customer being around in 18 or 24 months to offset their losses.

MrMonkey

I think 24 month deals are pretty good value. The cheapest 12-month contract I could get with the Nokia 5800 free on Vodafone was £25 per month (£300 over the term of the contract). This goes down to £20 for 18 months and £15 for a 24-month contract (both of which work out at £360 over the term of the contract). Hence, for an extra £60 I get an extra year's line rental thrown in. Take out the £90 Quidco and I get a new phone, worth £150, and 2 years line rental for a total of £270.

240-month contracts atre not a bad thing. Shop around. There are plenty of sim-only and 30-day contracts around if you wish to buy a phone yourself and pay a smaller line rental. At the end of the day phones are vastly more complex than they were a few years ago, almost to the point of being mini-netbooks. It is not realistic to expect one free every 12 months and to pay under £30 per month for line rental. Alternatively, the basic models are easily available for under £20 and perform all the essential functions, and can be used with the aforementioned cheap line rentals which do not come with a handset.

fsrandom

atlantis187 wrote: »

Are u serious in america u have to pay for incoming calls?

Yep, it certainly is.

Dime_Bar

fsrandom wrote: »

Yep, it certainly is.

They are also charged to recieve a SMS! As I and others have said we have a very healthy Mobile Market here and I personally do not feel the Orange \ T-Mobile merger will impact that, they where struggling to compete on infrastucture with the big 2 and by joining forces they should be able to overcome this, T-Mobiles Data setup is pretty good in my opinion better than Vodafone anyway and combined with both of there 2G network they should have a good package.

Also remember that although 3 and Virgin are small players the others will not be able to drift that far as people have a real option.

Reeves

MrMonkey wrote: »

240-month contracts atre not a bad thing.

:eek::eek::eek:

No way am I signing up for 20 years! lol

Dime_Bar

Just another point to show how good we have it here is a quote from a US Blog I have just seen.

Currently the T-Mobile G1 is the cheapest Android phone available in the US priced at $149.99 as part of a 2-year contract with T-Mobile US.

Bear in mind it is free here on a £25 18 month contract or a £20 24 month contract.

kai666

atlantis187 wrote: »

Are u serious in america u have to pay for incoming calls?

In america it is not possible to differentiate between mobile and landline numbers like it is here, so as you do not know whether you are phoning a landline or mobile, the cost is passed onto the person recieving the call.

Fork86

Wow, you learn something new every day.

Brightonfan

I bet marketing sales,cold callers and other scammers are having a field day out in the states if you are charged for incoming calls.