One of the things that always bothered me about early cancellation fees is that carriers use them as punitive fines though they claim they are to “subsidize phones.” Carriers in the US have gotten a bit better at lowering the ETF every month after they got slammed by class action lawsuits. Carriers still claim they need these ETFs to recover the subsidies for devices but they refuse to base the ETF on those devices.
Electronista noticed that Telus up in Canada has changed their ETF policy to follow their sub brand Koodo. From now on you don’t pay the flat rate ETF but instead pay off the “device balance.” In other words if you bought a $500 device the contract ETF should go down in fractions based on the contract length. While I think carriers will still game the system by claiming the device cost is based on MSRP even if it launched 12 months ago but its still a start.
In my dream world you would have the option of a cheaper monthly plan that does not subsidize devices or a more expensive monthly plan where a portion of it every month would go to paying for the device cost unless you wanted to pay for it fully up front. Something makes me think that dream is a long way off though it might be coming faster with Tablets and LTE/WiMax connected devices. What do you think?
Img Credit: TecheBlog
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