What's gone wrong with contracts?

[The Running Man]

I've just set my three to move over to a rolling 30 day with 200 mins and unlimited data for 20 a month. I can wait a few months till the s6 comes down in price as i refuse to pay over 32 a month.

 

[Camalot]

I just upgraded and was shocked to see what they offered me. Eventually got the following.

IPhone 6
Unlimited texts
Unlimited minutes
6GB of 4G data
Free phone
£33 a month

Took a while to knock them down, they originally wanted £49 a month for something lower than that.

 

[tereu5]

I just upgraded and was shocked to see what they offered me. Eventually got the following.

IPhone 6
Unlimited texts
Unlimited minutes
6GB of 4G data
Free phone
£33 a month

Took a while to knock them down, they originally wanted £49 a month for something lower than that.

24 month contract i presume ....
Next month its an upgrade for me and as S4 serves well thinking of going SIM only for a 12 month. S6 looks nice but can't be bothered any more with updating the phone whenever something new comes and the price tag attached....
SIM only hmm 10-15 quid for 2-3GB data should suit me well. Maybe next gen of phones will be better then current one (battery kips shrinking, no SD slot(worst idea ever) and no-replaceable battery...)

 

[Squink]

Mobile companies don't really get discounts on the handsets .

l'm not saying you're wrong but where do you get your information from? I always assumed the networks picked up their handsets at a huge bulk discount. If vodafone buys 100k samsung s6 phones, why is there no discount over what you can pick up up a sim free phone for from a shop? I don't understand the economics of bulk buying not producing a reasonable discount.

If you're right and you are probably better informed than me, it'll make me feel better about taking out a new contract

 

[Strawberry1987]

I only do sim only 12 month contracts now. Anyone who signs up for a £50 a month two year contract is utterly insane if you ask me.

I just buy outright whatever phone takes my fancy when it comes down to the right price every couple of years.

Shocked more people don't do this to be honest.

Same here my max is £35-£40 range never sign up to £50-£60 must be crazy for 24 months cost more than my car insurance. lol

 

[xGBHxPegasus]

I only do sim only 12 month contracts now. Anyone who signs up for a £50 a month two year contract is utterly insane if you ask me.

I just buy outright whatever phone takes my fancy when it comes down to the right price every couple of years.

Shocked more people don't do this to be honest.

Same but I was lucky enough to get one of the three sim only plans for £12.95 a month (200mins, unlimited texts/data) and just buy the phone outright when I fancy it.

Saying that I just brought 2 x S6's for myself and GF

 

[ubersonic]

It kind of sucks that unlimited data is long dead, but I guess once they started offering more texts/calls than you would ever use on the base package they had to find a way to make you pay for the premium packages so gimping data on the base packages was the only option

The annoying thing is I'm not convinced that many people actually care about 4G speeds (despite what Kevin Bacon tells us), I'm sure a lot of people would be happy with unlimited 3G at the old prices (for now anyway)

Agreed, would much rather have my unlimited 3G back

 

[mame]

Data is just the last thing networks are clinging onto to make extra money. First it was minutes when phones were just phones. At that time even though you could get virtually any phone for free on a 12 month 200 minute £30 contract, I remember the 'o2 max' 750 minutes tariff being £75/month

When SMS took off, most tariffs offered either no text (I remember 500 minutes and 0 text being a common combination) or 500 minutes and 100 texts because it was 10/12p a text after that.

Now it's data so unlimited/unlimited/2gb is what they tend to offer unless you pay more. They give you plenty of minutes and texts because that's not where the money is. If the problem with unlimited data really was people abusing it and running whole home networks off it etc then the easy answer would be change unlimited to 50gb

 

[ubersonic]

I had to call O2 last month to order my mother a new nano sim for the IP5 she inherited off my dad. They had to change her plan because they couldn't port a Cellnet tarrif to a new sim, she ended up losing her 200 minutes of off peak calls and her 200 WAP minutes lol.

 

[XeNoN89]

2gb data?! I coukd use that streaming just a film or two. What's the point in having such a nice phone and screen if you can't download barely anything to it?

I'm on wifi 90% of the time. I used to only have 1GB data which I did hit quite often. I haven't hit my limit with 2GB yet.

 

[Freefaller]

I use about 1Gb per week - so quite happy to be on unlimited.

 

[unclebob123]

My contract includes 4Gb per month. I find this to be more than enough. When I am at home and at work I am connected to wifi. I can't stream anything on my way home because I take the tube so am not using any data there. This doesnt really leave much other time to use data.

If I want to watch a film or TV show on my phone, I will just copy it to my phone instread of streaming.

I am very impressed with the 4g speeds I have been getting. I average 90-115Mb down and 45Mb up so I can see why people would be frustrated by data caps as you could reach your limit in a few minuites at these speeds.