Contract length, how long would you commit for?

[#1]

Quote from: geewizz

Would you turn your nose up at  a 200Mbps broadband connection, no throttling, 500GB usage allowance for £1.20 per month on an 18 month contract?

What relevance does this have to those of us who have our feet planted firmly on Planet Earth?

[#2]

Quote from: Jameseh

Completely from a personal point of view, my broadband is on an annual contract and my mobile phone is on an 18 month contract (all contract with O2 now are I believe). I rely on my mobile more than my broadband, and had no issues with the contract length.

Not wishing to take this too far off topic but...
Just renewed my 18 month (yuuck) contract with T-mobile. I was offered a new phone upto £149 or £5 off monthly bill - do these companies go out of their way to insult their customers?

[#3]

My sister, who claims to spend less per month got a much better upgrade than me, so I suspect it wasn't quite the truth.
Who spends less than £20 per month on a contact phone account now
I hate having contracts, and I am the kind of person who would rather pay extra not to have one.
Not extra in the sense of paying off x monthly instalments if I had to cancel, but a bit extra not to have one, so I don't mind subsidising the people who are happy to have one, as I'd rather have the flexibility. That's what I did with my current ISP when I got my flat .. I paid the activation fee of £40 odd-quid to have a monthly contract rather than not pay that and have an annual one. (note to senior BT PlusNet management).
So looks like the new product refresh would be good .. haaaannng on a minute.
Will save my thoughts on that for the 'other' thread

[#4]

I clicked for 12 months as a preference although I had actually agreed to move to Value prior to the u-turn on existing customers to be regraded to 12 months. I thought that it was worth it because I have been with Force 9 for almost 5 years now and have no reason to leave.
I would be rather more wary if I was signing up for 18 months with a company who was an unknown quantity.
When you think about it, there are far worse (or better, depending on how you view it) things to sign up for e.g. mortgages, payment protection, pensions and even marriage!
It seems that however much we dislike contracts they are here to stay. As Strat has said elsewhere, many of the folk who are grumbling about the new contract have been with PN far longer than 12 or 18 months. 

[#5]

i signed the 18 month contract as soon as the products was launched. well i didnt know it was 18 months till i was told on the phone as thats how i upgraded not by website.
But whithin in seconds of hearing 18 months come down my phone line from a PN number i knew there would be this feed back and that PN would reduce it for existing customers to put a bit of a  on things.
i wasnt to sure thoe that they would reduce the contract for existing customers who had all ready agreed to 18 months. so you get one these from me PN ;).
but the products still need tweaking to make a low cost monthly value option. to keep those new customers that will be put off by 18 and 12 months and most likely once there settled in with PN they would change package and agree to 18 months any way.

[#6]

@ASBO,
I'm sure someone from the Comms team will be able to amend your account, as it's something they have to do manually apparaently.
Still not ideal in my book, but there you go.

[#7]

@ Alex
Unless I'm very much mistaken, that has already been done.

[#8]

Quote from: Alex

Who spends less than £20 per month on a contact phone account now

Me 
But that's only since the VAT drop. I just never manage to use up all my allowance - close but no cigar.

[#9]

I guy I used to work with once spent £670 in one month on his (personal) mobile phone.
Don't think he was too happy.
Still, he'd get a good upgrade when they looked at his account

[#10]

Quote from: ASBO

i signed the 18 month contract as soon as the products was launched. well i didnt know it was 18 months

This is what I was thinking of when I read about and then posted the 7 day cooling off period............
Act in haste - pay in leisure.

Quote from: Alex

I guy I used to work with once spent £670 in one month on his (personal) mobile phone.

When GSM was first introduced in the mid 90's - we had them in the company straight away ( well I did work for Nokia ! ) - and we travelled over to Finland a lot, so ran up big overseas bills. Many people had bills of between £500 and and £1,000 - and that was mid 90's. And no we didn't get any discount from Voda or Cellnet that I was aware of.

[#11]

When my old company was persuaded to let us have company phones on our overseas trips, we had a very good system, we could divert our works desk top phone to the mobile, so if SWMBO wanted to call me in Italy/Austria she rang may home works desk and spoke to me in Italy all as a local call,  Never did see the bill from the mobile, that would be in about 95/96, dont think the mobile situation was that good before that, although I think we had one of the earliest phone masts at Boreham in the early 80's and its still in use now.
Came of Contract on my mobile about two years ago, had it since 94, now still on O2 as PAYG, get 500 free mins from home location for a mizerly top up fee of £10 which I am finding hard to use as I dont often travel outside the Home location that much  (can make calls from most areas in the town for free)

[#12]

Interesting that it's near a 50/50 split between no minimum term and one lasting a year.
Well OK - that's three of the options, so call it a 33.3/33.3/33.3 split then

[#13]

I'm not sure which is the best option for me to chose really. If I had it my way I wouldn't be tied into any contract at all because I think if you sign into something you should be able to leave at your own free will, lets face it 14 days or 30 days cooling off period isn't really a long time to test something is it, how many people encounter problems with a service they are tied into for a year within the cooling off period, not many i'm guessing, wait until your cooling off period has just ended and your faced with allsorts. But on another note, providing all goes well with my newly assigned Plusnet account i have just bound myself into the noose for 18months after been tied unwillingly for a year with the oh so wonderful BT and the even better Tiscali so who am i to say anything!

[#14]

Quote from: Jameseh

@ Alex Unless I'm very much mistaken, that has already been done.

nope your not losing your marbles just yet jameseh.

Quote from: ASBO

i wasnt to sure thoe that they would reduce the contract for existing customers who had all ready agreed to 18 months. so you get one these from me PN ;).

i thought the said it all but to make sure. PN forum staff re did my contract to 12 months within an hour of the big chesses giving the go ahead to lower contract length to 12 month's for existing customer's

[#15]

Quote from: Alex

Who spends less than £20 per month on a contact phone account now

Me 
never heard of a cash back deals?  12 month contract Total price 35x12=420 Nokia N95 (clearance) and £140 back from CPW send bill in at month 4 8 12  total price £0.00plus and  at the end of contract phone to sell on eBay.  600min any network any time and 100 text.
I have been doing these deals for well over 10 years. 
I would never sign up a internet package for 12months unless they offered a decent desktop or laptop computer.  Some mobile phone companies now offer free laptops for £40 month deal.  PC World offered free laptops if you signed up with a mobile phone contract in store with 3 over xmas.
Do Plusnet need 18 month contracts so they can secure extra funds from the banks?
Puddy
=Clearance phone are customer returns within 14 days