Telewest dn't sell TVs
in response to 'Orange bites back!', specificaly
'When my TV breaks down, I don't ring Telewest demanding a free TV else I wont pay my bill.'
If Telewest had sold u the TV you would say that or if your set top box broke you wouldnt pay the bill.
also if it was the petrol from Sainsbuy's that had made your car break, you'd expext them to pay to fix it.
also i dn't agree with everything that was said in 'Wising up to the upgrade con', but i like the idea of having cheap contracts and no phone subsidies.
Another option would be to get a cheap, short, contract (£5-15) and add different phones for X amount each month for a minimum Y months, this way its possible to get your chosen hand set and not have to pay out a lump sum for it. also, this would work well for upgrades because people could do it whenever they felt the need, for a monthly cost.
Moving on, when my upgrade came round (12 months @ £30), i asked O2 how much they would reduce my bill by if i didn't take a new handset. their offer...£100 credit! I mean if i were to take the hand sets they were offering i could have ebayed them for more than that! they wouldnt even spread it accross they year to reduce my monthly out goings. i ended up with a free windows smart phone with DAB radio from virgin and more mins & txt than i could use for £25/pm.
virgin state up front that you can have a new phone in 12 months or reduce the price of the contract by £5/pm if you dont want an upgrade.
And finally, from personal experience, only my Samsung i300 and Nokia 3210 have even been fit to use after a year, my SE T68i and T610 were in tatters and had pore battry life and other little niggles from around month 11.