Richard
Cobbett: Publish and be damned
Congratulations, mobile
phone industry!
After years of painstaking
effort, you’ve finally done it - rendered smartphone contracts the worst
purchase this side of a second-hand backscratcher from an abandoned leper
colony. Shall we count the ways? Why, yes. Yes, we shall.
Let’s start with two-year
contracts as the standard, for devices on - at most - a yearly update cycle.
Android phones are especially problematic for this, as there are at least three
steps between you and even software updates - Google making them, a
manufacturer like HTC fixing them up for its range, and finally your carrier
pushing them. If any of them suddenly deem your phone obsolete, you’re
auto-screwed.
After that, you’re not
even saving much on the phone itself. Even if you agree to a $48 a month
contract, the phone’s going to be around $160 minimum, which only makes
financial sense if you do actually spend more than 10 hours a month talking
into the thing. I’m sure many do, hut for my part, the only reason I’ve been paying
has been for the data package. lve been paying $56 for the last just-u
nder-18-months to have instant access to my email, Google and... uh... TV
Tropes... but if I set up a new contract now, most providers would limit me to
just 500MB. Having played with the camera on the iPhone 4S, and the
surprisingly-good Sin, I see myself breaking that limit on a regular basis.
The thing is, there are
more reasons than that to hate the status quo - those are just the biggies.
It’s a spectacularly horrible, customer-hostile situation, which mostly
survives because most of us don’t think we have any real choice in the matter.
$48+ a month is treated as an unofficial smartphone tax, and we accept that
cost because all the major networks unsurprisingly like to push the idea that
we have to.
Except we don’t, which is
why this contract cycle, I took myself out of the game and bought an tin locked
iPhone 4S directly. Expensive? Yes. Did it involve standing outside an Apple
Store at 7:30am on 8 October? No comment, but I regret nothing! And rather than
signing up for 24 long months, I’ve gone PAYG via a cool little service called
Giffgaff.
Giffgaff (www.giffgaff.com)
is an odd company. It acts like it’s small, indie and proud, though really it’s
O2 and runs on the same network. Its gimmick is using the community to market
and offer support, being handled completely online, and using the savings to
offer better services. How much? 10p/minute calls, 6p texts, 20p for up to 20MB
a day internet. Already pretty good. There are no contracts to sign and no minimum
terms. At worst you lose $16 for your initial top-up if you decide to PAC it in
and go with a different service.
Those prices can be capped
to save them getting out of hand, with auto—top lip for convenience. Best of
all though are the “Goodybags”, which let you spend between $8 and $40 on
bundles that last a month - $16 buying you 250 minutes, unlimited texts and -
yes - unlimited mobile internet. Going to be out of the country for the month?
Save your money. Going to be working on a heavy project? Pick one up. Easy.
To compare the value, its
parent company’s nearest equivalent, Simplicity, is $21.6 a month for 100MB of
data, and $26.4 for the sadly-standard 500MB. By going with Giffgaff’s $16 a
month deal, my choice of unlocked iPhone will pay for itself in a year. At
most. The community focus makes pretty good sense, and has produced several
handy things - a forum full of helpful people, and an iPhone app for keeping
track of my balance. The handiest thing about it though involves SIM cards.
Giffgaff doesn’t provide the Micro-SIMs used by the iPhone 4, but it does
reward people for sending cards to people. The result? A cottage industry of
users who cut and mail them to new users, completely free. I ordered one from www.
bit.ly/joingiffgaff on a Friday and it arrived on the Monday along with
the rest of the card. No complaints so far. If they develop later, I’ll just
jump ship.
The PAYG model isn’t right
for everyone, but it’s at least a viable choice that’s finally worth
considering. I’ve never wanted an expensive contract. It’s just always
been the best of a bad bunch of well-pushed offerings, which is even worse now
we can’t at least guarantee getting a cool new phone out of it. Next contract
renewal, it’s worth at least seeing if something else will fit you better before
locking yourself into a bad deal until 2015. You might be surprised to see how
many other options you actually have.
