Contract Killer

Hello again, I have been asked to discuss the pros/cons of cell phone contracts. This is an issue which I’m sure impacts almost all of you, so hopefully you’ll get something out of it whether or not you actually care.

First of all, in the 8 or so years I’ve owned cell phones (don’t quote me on that number), I have run the gamut of plans and contracts, so I consider myself a wealth of knowledge in this area. My first cell phone was a pay-as-you-go throwaway phone from Telus back around the start of high school. When I describe it as a throwaway phone, I mean that it was being sold for $30 with $30 worth of pay-as-you-go included on the account. The phone was a piece of junk, but it was really only for emergencies and arranging rides with my parents, so all in all it was a good first experience, but a short lived one. My second phone, the first one I got without my parents, was also pay-as-you-go, with Bell. It was a beautiful Nokia bar phone which I loved with all my heart. I knew even then that contracts were a terrible idea, and that at that time I also didn’t have the money or requirement for a plan, so paying 15c/txt wasn’t a huge deal, and I rarely made calls with it. That setup also didn’t last long, which was the beauty of paying for service as you use it, because there was no commitment to any particular carrier. Next, I moved on to Virgin Mobile, still on pay-as-you-go. I had the same Nokia phone for a while with Virgin, but I think I went through 3 phones with them in the span of less than a year. I was working part time in high school and had disposable income with nothing to buy, so spending $50-80 on a phone every 3-6 months wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and I enjoyed always having a new phone, so I was never bored. Through first year of university I still didn’t have any need for a plan since I barely used my phone, but I was suddenly hit with the knowledge that I could sign a piece of paper, receive a phone, and with the promise of paying a bill every month, I would be set for (at that time) life!

December 9th, 2007 was the night when my life changed. My shiny new Motorola W510 arrived in the mail and I hurriedly called to confirm and activate my service. I had locked in a 36-month contract with Fido and with the awesome phone number 613-255-3311 I was off to the races. In my adolescent naivety I had signed up for a 3-year contract in order to save $100 dollars on the price of my phone, which was originally $150. My plan was $60+change/month, and included several instances of the word unlimited. At the ripe old age of 19 I was all too susceptible to reacting favourably to the word unlimited. My plan came with UNLIMITED text messaging, UNLIMITED incoming calls, UNLIMITED evenings and weekends starting at 7 PM. It had all the call display, voicemail and call waiting options included, and it was more than what I needed. That is all well and good, but I didn’t use all of my minutes, and ended up that most of the time I used was both incoming as well as evening, so both weren’t really necessary. After 2 years, Fido changed their plans and so I was able to change my options and save about $10/month getting rid of the redundant unlimited options. I also decided at that time to add data to my plan, as well as upgrading to add unlimited picture/video messages and extending my evenings/weekends to begin at 5 PM, which only cost $5/month all together. I was very frustrated with having a contract at this point, but it didn’t bother me too much because I was very happy with my plan.

Fast forward now to December 9th, 2010. I still have the same plan, and I am now paying $45.20/mo consistently for 100 daytime minutes (ie. 9-5 weekdays) a month, with unlimited everything else (data and texting) besides long distance. I have the ability to make calls through Google on my phone as well as any computer with a microphone, which is what I do for long distance since the long distance I use is always from home this isn’t a big deal anyhow. I am still extremely happy with my plan and expect to continue to use it as long as I can. I bought my last 3 phones at cost without the contractual subsidy because I have come to realize that contracts are a gigantic rip-off (in most cases) designed to take advantage of people who don’t have the money to buy a snazzy new phone up front but still want one. People see this as an advantage because as humans we find it extremely difficult to think long term. That being said, there are certainly cases, especially with smartphones, where you are saving up to $500 with a contract. This contract though, is worth over $2000 to the carrier in most cases, and in the cases where you are saving $500, you are usually still paying anywhere from $50 to $300 dollars for the subsidized phone. With new phones being pushed out every few months, and older models being made obsolete within a year or two, three-year contracts have become a little bit less pervasive, with some carriers also offering two-year contracts, which are a little bit more reasonable. Even still, contracts are certainly not worth it for me without considerable perks.

I have decided in light of some discussions I have been having with friends that I would like to show reasons people why iPhones should be jailbroken, as well as why Google+ is the future of social networking, not just a fad.

Jailbreak Tweak: SBSettings

This utility allows for quick toggling of items such as WiFi, Bluetooth, brightness, and gives the ability to close processes. If you are tired of going into settings to change these things, they are accessible with a quick swipe of the status bar on a jailbroken phone. It is a very easy convenient way to access these settings, and I recommend everybody jailbreak their phone, even if just for this tool. A quick visit to jailbreakme.com is all it takes for the time being!

Google+ Feature: Sharing options

Lets you choose who specifically [or which groups (called circles)] you would like to share things with. You can add a photo (or album), a video clip, a link (or embedded video or photo) and your location (even from desktop computers) should you so desire. It is a beautiful smooth interface so you don’t have to share new baby pictures of your cousins with your acquaintance you met last night at the bar, and you don’t have to share pictures of you cheersing your bar mates with your boss when you call in sick the next day. It is a beautiful thing, and extremely easy and intuitive to use.


Comments

2 responses to “Contract Killer”

  1. Ironically enough, I just signed a shiny new two year agreement with Fido to get a free phone originally worth $110! Two years *is* quite a bit more reasonable than three. I ended up getting the Sony Ericsson Cedar, which almost has all the perks of a smartphone (3G network, native apps, push notification mail, etc.) without the ginormous bill at the end of the month (i.e. I can use all those things with the $5 unlimited data usage in a legitimate fashion haha).

  2. I was pretty happy with my contract deal. Three years saved me a little north of $400, and allowed me to get the plan I wanted. So long as I keep the plan until ~September, I end up saving money on both the phone and the services I wanted (when considering cancellation fees).

    Further, even if I do cancel after Sept., I'm still saving money due to inflation! Yay economics!

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