Anyone signing an AT&T contract after June 1 is in for a nasty surprise if ever in the mood to break it: The early termination fee for smartphones is being raised from $US175 to $US325. Here’s AT&T’s ridiculous explanation:
The idea is, and we think that it’s fair approach, that if you spend less on a device, your early termination fee should be less. If you spend more, your early termination fee should be more.
So following that reasoning, AT&T is in fact “lowering the ETF on feature phones and messaging phones by $US25 to $US125″.
Great. A slightly lower dumbphone ETF will certainly comfort me when I renew my iPhone contract and agree to nearly double my old ETF. [WSJ via Dallas News]
matt
Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 4:51 PMheh, fair enough to be pissed off, but it IS perfectly fair!
they’ve done a good job of hiding the ridiculous price of smartphones behind “$0 upfront contracts” but the fact of the matter is this: why the hell should they give you a phone for free, just for you to then spend one month on the contract and then terminate!? as it is: what is it in the US? $200 up front for the iPhone? if you singed up for the plan, then terminated it, paid the $325, that would have been $525 that you spent to get an iPhone, which is probably fairly reasonable considering the cost of one outright (what is it? like twice as much as the equivalent iPod touch??).
there is no such thing as a free lunch. LEAST OF ALL from the telcos!
(just sick of people responding to me stating that smartphones are expensive by smugly replying “oh, but it’s free on a plan”)
(also, apparently google chrome spell check now corrects “iphone” to “iPhone” and “ipod” to “iPod”… I just died a bit inside…)
stopthatcrazygoat
Sunday, May 23, 2010 at 4:53 AMDid someone say Android?