Verizon Plans to Discontinue 1-year Contracts Effective April 17

[Anubis]

well that fucking blows


http://www.droid-life.com/2011/04/07/verizon-discontinuing-1-year-contracts-after-april-17/

 

[masterxfob]

stupidly, i've been with them for the last 10 years, but no longer. my contract is up and i'm switching over to page plus cellular which uses the same cdma network. i'm not a heavy data user, so their plans work out great for me.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

do people jump carriers that often? i was with tmobile for 3 years, AT&T for 5 years. i dont see myself switching anymore. sprint for 1ish year.

 

[Anubis]

i dont think people jump carriers that often. 1 year plans allow people to upgrade their phones more often at a discount, and with how fast phone tech is advancing it is worth it

 

[chin311]

even more reason to buy phones second hand and avoid contracts all together. i'm with verizon and cant really imagine switching, had at&t and it blew big time, so had to switch to verizon. Now i can actually make phone calls, at&t dropped calls couple times a day. I can count the number of dropped calls with verizon on about 3 fingers, in about a years time. Sprint is a joke around here as well.

 

[bucwylde23]

Looks like I'm going to be buying my phones off contract from now on. I was going to do a 1 year contract on my next phone.

 

[shortylickens]

do people jump carriers that often? i was with tmobile for 3 years, AT&T for 5 years. i dont see myself switching anymore. sprint for 1ish year.

I jump carriers often but as anyone in ATOT will tell you I am always unhappy with things. Movies, music, video games, and especially phone service. I had AT&T for a bit, found their service OK but phone selection did not impress. Had Tmobile for a short while, same thing. Good service, lousy phones.

Sprint outright screwed me, and Verizon has been screwing me for a couple years. Will not renew with them again until they improve their business practices.

I think its a first impression kinda thing. If you get a good first impression from a company you will stick with them through more BS. If you get a bad first impression you probably wont be as tolerant and likely jump ship any time there is an issue.

OH, and I already planned to move to Virgin long before the rumors about limited data and nixing 1 year plans, so this news isnt too important to me.

 

[Phobic9]

i dont think people jump carriers that often. 1 year plans allow people to upgrade their phones more often at a discount, and with how fast phone tech is advancing it is worth it

This is why I used 1-yr contracts. The ability to have a new phone every year is pretty nice.

Guess it's time to go off contract for my phones now. *sigh*

 

[cronos]

My first carrier in the US is Cingular (or was it still SBC/Ameritech back then?, can't remember exactly), then I switched to AT&T Wireless, which ended up being bought by Cingular, who changed their name to AT&T for the name recognition. So I guess I can say that I have been with one carrier all this time

Oh and except for the very first year, I have been off contract. One year is enough for me. No more.

 

[MoxJr]

This is why I got the Thunderbolt on 1 year contract ^_^

 

[hanoverphist]

do people jump carriers that often? i was with tmobile for 3 years, AT&T for 5 years. i dont see myself switching anymore. sprint for 1ish year.

i was with vzw since 1998. i dumped my phone onto my work account and canceled my personal account. im still working on getting my work to switch to something else too.

 

[MotionMan]

My first carrier in the US is Cingular (or was it still SBC/Ameritech back then?, can't remember exactly), then I switched to AT&T Wireless, which ended up being bought by Cingular, who changed their name to AT&T for the name recognition. So I guess I can say that I have been with one carrier all this time

Is there a good mobile phone carrier flowchart/family tree somewhere? I always wondered who swallowed up whom.

MotionMan

 

[purbeast0]

do not care ... been on 2 year contracts with them for over 6 years now.

 

[simonizor]

Where I live, it's either US Cellular, Verizon, or prepaid. US Cellular has a below average phone selection, and no unlimited data plan (not that I need it, the 5GB they offer is plenty), but they have much better pricing, and the customer service is great. Verizon has a great phone selection and unlimited data, but their customer service is usually poor, and they are a lot more expensive than US Cellular on pretty much every aspect of their plans.

I'm on a plan with my parents with US Cellular because we can't really afford Verizon. We've been with them ever since we got cell phones probably 10 years ago. I'm happy with pretty much everything except the phone selection. Their best phone is the Mesmerize, and it's OK, but it's nothing to write home about.

 

[cronos]

Is there a good mobile phone carrier flowchart/family tree somewhere? I always wondered who swallowed up whom.

MotionMan

I actually saw one posted somewhere here (it's either here or ATOT) that shows something like this but I couldn't find it again.

All I could find right now is the wiki page of AT&T Mobility which has a sub-section called History that explains this a little bit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility

 

[pm]

I really wish the US would dump contract phones altogether and switch to an all-prepaid model. It's not going to happen, and I think a lot of people might disagree with me about this... but my view is that the situation that I find in other countries is much better than the situation in the US (and Canada). You choose your phone and then you shop around for a carrier and I find that their rates are cheaper and they are all vastly more competitive than in the US. Things like tethering, text messages, data caps - they are all cheaper and more negotiable. Even the phones are generally a lot cheaper.

We'd all have cheaper rates in the US (and Canada) if there were more carriers, shorter or more limited contracts, and everyone went prepaid. If you could port your number for $10 and your phone worked on any carrier, and your carrier implemented a data cap that you didn't like... you'd walk. They raise SMS/text rates, you'd walk... here in the US we are all trapped. You get a chance to walk every two years and then it's a huge hassle to move if you have a whole family...

 

[s44]

This would only work if everyone used the same spectrum and the same protocol.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I really wish the US would dump contract phones altogether and switch to an all-prepaid model. It's not going to happen, and I think a lot of people might disagree with me about this... but my view is that the situation that I find in other countries is much better than the situation in the US (and Canada). You choose your phone and then you shop around for a carrier and I find that their rates are cheaper and they are all vastly more competitive than in the US. Things like tethering, text messages, data caps - they are all cheaper and more negotiable. Even the phones are generally a lot cheaper.

We'd all have cheaper rates in the US (and Canada) if there were more carriers, shorter or more limited contracts, and everyone went prepaid. If you could port your number for $10 and your phone worked on any carrier, and your carrier implemented a data cap that you didn't like... you'd walk. They raise SMS/text rates, you'd walk... here in the US we are all trapped. You get a chance to walk every two years and then it's a huge hassle to move if you have a whole family...

well we kinda need to move to LTE across the board and adopt SIM cards, etc. But we know 3G technology is not going away so VZW will still have different phones from AT&T. Plus, aren't they booking different parts of the 700 mhz frequency? And now AT&T will use 1700 AWS also for LTE? It's a mess. This frequency bullshit is screwing us over. But even if we had interoperability on ALL carriers, the mindset that every carrier has their OWN version of the phone (Fascinate, Vibrant, Captivate, Mesmerize) will not go away. On top of that throw in the unknown concept of unlocked phones...

 

[pm]

Right. Agreed with S44 - we need the same spectrum and the same protocol. And I agree with Dlerium that each carrier with their own versions of their phones is another problem.

I will take the distinctly unAmerican view that we should have had this regulated by the goverment. There's a place for free market capitalism but it needs to be built on a foundation of mandated interoperability standards. In plenty of things it helps to have standards and when standards don't work, government mandates. We could live in a world where only GE products will plug into GE outlets, but we have one type of outlet in all houses in the US (and Canada) and I would argue that we should have had a mandated government wireless system - this block of spectrum, this protocol. Something much more akin to the systems in places like the EU, and Singapore, and South Korea. When the carriers own the towers and the spectrum and define their own protocol there's a much higher disincentive to cooperate at all.

But we are where we are... I just look at other countries and think "we are the US, why on earth can't we have a system like this?"

 

[thecoolnessrune]

This is why I got the Thunderbolt on 1 year contract ^_^

Same.. I did it with the basis of getting a new phone next year. That's going to make things more of an issue..

 

[lothar]

This is why I got the Thunderbolt on 1 year contract ^_^

I wanted to do this when I saw that thread on SD 2 weeks ago.
However I thought in my head...That means I'll only be on an LTE "unlimited" plan for one year and not two.
Is getting another phone upgrade in a year more important than having unlimited data for 2 years?
Decisions, decisions, decisions...

 

[lothar]

I really wish the US would dump contract phones altogether and switch to an all-prepaid model. It's not going to happen, and I think a lot of people might disagree with me about this... but my view is that the situation that I find in other countries is much better than the situation in the US (and Canada). You choose your phone and then you shop around for a carrier and I find that their rates are cheaper and they are all vastly more competitive than in the US. Things like tethering, text messages, data caps - they are all cheaper and more negotiable. Even the phones are generally a lot cheaper.

We'd all have cheaper rates in the US (and Canada) if there were more carriers, shorter or more limited contracts, and everyone went prepaid. If you could port your number for $10 and your phone worked on any carrier, and your carrier implemented a data cap that you didn't like... you'd walk. They raise SMS/text rates, you'd walk... here in the US we are all trapped. You get a chance to walk every two years and then it's a huge hassle to move if you have a whole family...

I can already do this.

I can already port my number for free, why would I want to pay $10 for such a privilege?
Ummm...I don't know what kind of contract you signed, but if any carrier did most of those things I'd walk and not be responsible for paying any termination fee.

What is stopping me or anyone from going to a Verizon store and deciding to pay $500(or whatever the non-contract price is) for a Thunderbolt?
If I pay $500 for a Thunderbolt without carrier subsidization, are you saying that I can't decide to walk off my Verizon contract anytime I want and would be trapped for 2 years? Would I have to pay an ETF even though I didn't use their subsidy? I'm not sure, but I doubt that's the case.

I am still not convinced that the EU/Asia non-contract system is better than our US contract system just yet. The benefit those other places have is in their interoperability/spectrum frequency. We have stupid spectrum issues going on here, however if we used the same spectrum, then that would allow for a more "apple to apple" comparison on a contract vs non-contract system.

 

[lothar]

Spectrum frequency compatibility among carriers is the main issue we have. Our contract system isn't an issue at all.

This would only work if everyone used the same spectrum and the same protocol.

This.

well we kinda need to move to LTE across the board and adopt SIM cards, etc. But we know 3G technology is not going away so VZW will still have different phones from AT&T. Plus, aren't they booking different parts of the 700 mhz frequency? And now AT&T will use 1700 AWS also for LTE? It's a mess. This frequency bullshit is screwing us over. But even if we had interoperability on ALL carriers, the mindset that every carrier has their OWN version of the phone (Fascinate, Vibrant, Captivate, Mesmerize) will not go away. On top of that throw in the unknown concept of unlocked phones...

And this.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I really wish the US would dump contract phones altogether and switch to an all-prepaid model. It's not going to happen, and I think a lot of people might disagree with me about this... but my view is that the situation that I find in other countries is much better than the situation in the US (and Canada).

Which countries? Comparing costs for my family the German offerings are significantly more expensive for our uses, and you pay more for the phones up front, and you still have the carrier exclusive issues you do in the US(and then of course, VAT). Roaming is another issue that EU users face far more frequently then we do.

The EU system works great if you are a single user, stay put in one country, talk to others on the same carrier as you and don't mind paying significantly more for your phone up front. If you have a family, travel around a bit and talk to users on multiple carriers frequently then the US system ends up being significantly cheaper in the long run.

With that said, being able to buy phones outright for reduced monthly pricing on all the carriers would be very nice(TMo offered this, not sure if they still do or if any of the others are currently). Having them all share the same towers I think is a bit of a pipe dream that I can only really see happening if some sort of mega merger between Big Red and Big Blue were allowed(which wouldn't happen and obviously would be very bad), or the government takes over the cell industry.....

 

[jersiq]

Right. Agreed with S44 - we need the same spectrum and the same protocol. And I agree with Dlerium that each carrier with their own versions of their phones is another problem.

I will take the distinctly unAmerican view that we should have had this regulated by the goverment. There's a place for free market capitalism but it needs to be built on a foundation of mandated interoperability standards. In plenty of things it helps to have standards and when standards don't work, government mandates. We could live in a world where only GE products will plug into GE outlets, but we have one type of outlet in all houses in the US (and Canada) and I would argue that we should have had a mandated government wireless system - this block of spectrum, this protocol. Something much more akin to the systems in places like the EU, and Singapore, and South Korea. When the carriers own the towers and the spectrum and define their own protocol there's a much higher disincentive to cooperate at all.

But we are where we are... I just look at other countries and think "we are the US, why on earth can't we have a system like this?"

Spectrum has been regulated by the government, that's why we are in this as it is now. Everything was grand with strictly 850 mHz and two carriers. It's when we pushed the PCS and AWS bands that we really started to get into problems.

I also disagree that the government has the capacity to handle even providing towers. I don't see them sitting in on local siting council meetings to argue a position for putting in a tower in a town. There's also the structural factors such as weight and windshear (this is a large reason most companies don't colocate on all towers) Height on the antenna is also king. I doubt they could develop an equitable system for all carriers.

The .gov could care less, they auction blocks the way they do to drive up prices, making their auction seem more like a win in the public eyes. All carriers want to have contiguous spectrum. Inter frequency handoffs have always been a bitch on every protocol in every band.