Canadian carrier Telus today announced a rather progressive change in how they handle early-termination fees (or ETFs). Normally, you pay a premium based on how many months are left on your three-year contract, which traditionally could get as high as $500. They’ve changed that around a little bit so now you only have to pay back whatever Telus initially subsidized your phone for. Like tab-based carriers, every month you stay with them puts a dent into that subsidy (depending on how big it is and how long your contract is), so the longer you’re with Telus, the less you would have to pay. So how much would you end up paying? According to this handy little slider, you would end up paying $170 to get out of a three-year contract one year early for a phone you paid $99 for initially (thanks to the initial $360 discount). Telus had been flirting with this idea with their device upgrade policy, but it’s good to see them applying it across the board, even if you want to just switch carriers.
Compared to the other big Canadian carriers, Telus has actually been fairly forward-thinking over the last year or so. They offered the INQ Chat 3G for free on a two-year contract (which is typically unheard of up north), and had the excellent BlackBerry Pearl 3G for a very reasonable $200 off-contract. Those kind of hardware deals have continued thanks to 72-hour online sales that offer great deals on phones with one-year contracts. They’ve even axed system access and 911 fees, which have always been seen as baseless moneygrabs by customers.
Younger carriers, like Mobilicity and Wind Mobile have had some very compelling promotions, even though you still have to pay a fair bit for the phone outright because you aren’t signing up for a multi-year contract. That’s a distinct pressure to put on the Big Three, or at very least their prepaid underlings, Koodo, Virgin, and Fido, but if Telus has managed to find a way to offer some humane flexibility, they may be able to hold on to their contract model and remain competitive after all.