After watching President Obama deliver the 2011 State of the Union address, and reading reactions to his speech from people on both sides of the political spectrum, one word that continuously crops up time and time again is “socialism”. There is this fear, so severe that it’s even paralyzing, that everything government touches turns to hell. In Europe that isn’t the case since countries provide free education, public transportation, and more, to their citizens, who may protest from time to time over the finer details, but more often than not are satisfied with what the people in power do with said power. Now the EU is trying to help out consumers once more, by forcing operators to offer 12 month contracts, imposing a maximum contract length of 24 months, and making number portability take no longer than 24 hours.
These laws are set to go into effect in May and the UK is already preparing for the vast changes that need to occur within their borders. Contract lengths started creeping up in England a few years back, from 6 and 12 month to 18 and 24 month, and now those days are soon going to come to an end. Yes, your monthly bill will obviously rise if you opt to pay off your handset over the course of 12 months versus 24, but you’ll also be able to upgrade faster, and you don’t have to stick with an operator you don’t like just because you’re afraid of the fees you’ll rack up from terminating.
What say you, would you like it if Congress passed a law requiring operators to offer you a 12 month contract and to disclose how much of your monthly bills goes towards actually paying off your expensive smartphone versus paying for service? It’s a touchy subject, but thanks to Apple’s 1 year iPhone product cycle, this may happen sooner rather than later over on FreedomLand’s shores.