Why Twelve Month Contracts?
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A few days ago I visited an aquaintance who was just moving over to broadband. They had taken the easy option of Freeserve or Wanadoo or whatever they call themselves these days, along with the …sign your soul away for 12 months contract clause. Biggest laugh was the service wasn’t due to be turned on until today or maybe Tuesday (since it is a bank holiday), something which was eventually revealed after a morning on the phone to their support team. Even funnier was I had been getting a broadband service, downloading updates and service packs before this turn on!
Why are so many members of the general public being duped into signing up for 12 month contracts with some of the big boys? Is it their slick marketing campaign with polished TV, magazine and other adverts? Why do so many of the big boys “wanna do” their customers over by locking them in for a year!
My advice to anyone considering broadband is to ask friends, family and I.T. professionals for advice and experiences. Avoid anyone who ties you up in legally binding contracts for any period more than one month. Finally, forget the free hardware as it is usually crap. Take the pain and buy some decent kit in the price range of £25 - £150 - you won’t regret it. Some key words to look out for: firewall, network address translation (NAT), stateful packet inspection (SPI), MAC access control, etc.
