Re: Contracts
How did we ever get to this stage where mobiles and broadband are on (usually 1 or 2 year) contracts?
Because most people found it easier to fork out twenty or thirty quid a month rather than having to find £300-400 - and that was back in the day before phone makers realised that the gullible could be easily fleeced for £1,000+
Now we've got the value camp of people buying SIM free handsets, we've got an intermediate group buying a handset on contract and wanting to keep it beyond the contract (to whom this proposal applies). And then there's the group that want to always have the newest, shiniest, and who are happy to be perpetually paying full contract prices, renewing as soon as the contract ends (or permits an "upgrade").
But, as usual, Ofcom have flunked consumer protection, in favour of cosying up to the industry. MNOs should not be required to tell their customers they might get a better deal, they should be compelled by law to put customers onto an regulated airtime only contract when the handset's paid off.
Change is likely to come - there's a very slow moving trend that is pushing for all consumer regulation to be separated out from technical/asset regulatory bodies (Ofwat, Ofgem Ofcom, possibly FCA and CAB), and combined into a single consumer regulator, applying common standards for most consumer services. Its a long way off, but I look forward to the happy day when the clowns at Ofcom lose their consumer protection responsibilities to a body far more capable of doing the job.