I hate the thought of dedicating 2 years of my life to one particular carrier. As a guy that likes to follow the technologies, I can't bear the thought of being totally outdated in a year with othing I can do about it.
Does anyone else think that anything longer than a year is just rediculous?
Why Oh Why Do 2 Year Contracts Still Exist
Wed, 03/02/2005 - 01:35
#1
Why Oh Why Do 2 Year Contracts Still Exist
I agree that at this point, it is ridiculous. However, if you think about it, you don't really have to sign a two-year agreement in many cases if you don't want to. Generally, the only reason to sign one is to get a discount off of a new phone. They use it as incentive. If you don't need a new phone, you can usually get away without signing a multi-year agreement.
That and (at least with Sprint) a 5% discount to the monthly service fee. But really, guys, is it ever-changing carriers or ever-changing phones that you want the freedom to keep up with? If the latter, then who cares about the contract?
Because someone will pay for them! Can't imagine why with all the changes - not just plans but company consolidations, etc. There's a Verizon plan that went from $159 to $99 per month. How'd you like to get stuck for an extra $60 per month for 23 months?
In the fine print on my Verizon Wireless bills, it's says something about air time charges start basically as soon as you click Send. Or maybe it says as soon as it starts ringing--before the phone is even answered.
Does anyone else think that's weird? If no one answers, why should I be charged for air time?
I agree with you, airtime should be billed as soon as the other party (or their answering machine) answers the phone, not when you press send. However, with cellular aitime becoming cheaper and cheaper, I doubt that it will make much of an impact on your airtime usage or monthly charges.
The 2-year contracts exist primarily to protect the carriers' interests in an attempt to reduce churn. Whether or not it's an effective strategy is a different discussion.
If a plan's pricing drops dramatically you should be able to have your account updated with the new (lower) rate - from the carrier's perspective, you could always change carriers (incurring the equivalent of two months worth of charges in cancellation fees). If the carrier won't go for it, try your local store as they're more likely to be helpful. If the carrier won't budge, it becomes a clear-cut consumer protection issue and filing a BBB complaint should quickly fix that.
Voice and data airtime costs are going to continue to drop for the forseeable future. Market opportunities are pretty much saturated, and even with new offerings carriers will still be pressured to remain price-competitive just to retain the customers they have and recruit enough new customers to balance out their churn ratios. Their current wireless paradigm has plateaued.
To jump to the next level, they need a model where they can profit from unused (zero-dollar revenue) bandwidth for data transmission - a model that Rosetta-Wireless provides.
Maybe more cellular companies are going towards the 2 year contracts since you can change companies and keep the same phone number. I have verizon wireless. The only benefit to having a 2 year contract with them was to get a $100 rebate for a phone in 2 years and get a cheaper price for the phone I was buying. So, I signed up for the 2 year contract. Lucky me, I found a way out of part of the 2 year contract. I was only a month into my contract, when I decided to change part of my plan. If you change any part of your plan with Verizon your contract starts ALL OVER AGAIN. So if you started with a 2 year contract you can get a 1 year contract. So, instead of a 2 year contract with Verizon, in effect my contract was 13 months.