New EU Propsals Set To Force Mobile Contract Companies To Give Only 12 Month's Contract

Well, that's good news, creativesaver. I've noticed that the contracts have been getting longer and longer. I've just renewed my contract and upgraded my phone, had no choice about a 2 year contract (never had more than 18 months previously) but I did manage to negotiate the monthly bill down by over 25%!

For this reason, I changed to a "chip-only" tariff and bought my own phone. It worked out slightly cheaper this way and I am free to sell my phone and buy a new one whenever I choose, not when the phone company chooses.

Tongue_in_cheek : -
Here we go again. Blame the companies for everything. Looks like people all around the UK are turning into The Daily Wail readers. :-)

How else did people expect the operators to recoup the cost of the FREE mobile phone that we get with the contract. The phones that are now available on contracts are capable of doing so many things and are expensive if bought sim free.

The other thing I have never understood is why would people need to upgrade their phones every 12 months!! But what do I know, I only replaced my last phone after it finally gave up on me and got an LG touch screen one .. this was 18 momnths ago. I got it on a 18 month contract @ £5 pm. It does everything I expect a mobile phone to do.

I like HSP's black and white view here and of course,he is correct, the same sim free model would cost a fortune out of contract but it would be good to know the level of mark up on these things.

Mobile phone resellers do very nicely thank you but alas their money generation days may be at an end if the contracts are limited to one year. There is a lot of money to be made in selling mobile phones and contracts, especially those on business tariffs ( you only have to look at the expensive floor space they rent where the goods actually take up less than one percent of the total area ).

While you may applaud the EU for these proposals, it will become like the banking system, if they cannot make money one way, they will make it another. If they indeed set guidelines on what to charge, it will either hike up unregulated charges or state of the art models will only be available on a front loaded basis.

People love their mobile phones and tacitly accept the 24 months necessary to own a decent bit of kit. And the contracts are usually transparent, I believe, to ongoing costs. This is just another EU invasion by the jobsworth that think new legislation is hip. Why don't they work on something that is truly detrimental to people?

Oh, and as for wanting a new model every twelve months, it's very much a want factor of the latest bells and whistles bit of kit. I align it to men that change their women every year, they simply want to wake up this years glossier model!

Well it's good to see that something is being looked into at least. I do as lou has done, buy a roll over sim and then buy my own phone as and when I want.

Only problem with this news is that as per usual it is a very short sighted change, now the monthly payments will just go up to compensate or customers will have to make a lump sum 'deposit' for the phone in the first place, so unitl a monthly cap on contract fee's and a cap on profit margins for phones come into play it's no difference at all really. And I doubt that they will ever be able to cap how much profit a company can make on selling a phone!

Only people that benefit are those who break their phone during the contract without insurance, they have less time to keep paying that contract for a broken phone.