New rules for mobile phone contracts

QX179R SG

Come the 1st of March next year, consumers who apply for or renew a contract for a fixed line, mobile or broadband service cannot be locked into it for more than 24 months.

Those who sign on to contracts longer than three months and terminate them before the end of their contract period will no longer have to pay fixed early termination charges.

Instead, they will see these charges decrease over time on a month-by-month basis as they serve out their contract.

These are part of some new guidelines rolled out by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, to ensure that industry practices will be more reasonable and fair.

Under the new guidelines, operators offering telco services must also ensure that early termination charges do not include costs that can be avoided when the consumer terminates his service.

Such costs could include back-end administrative and operational costs that the operator would not have to incur once the customer terminates the service.

The new guidelines were prompted by consumers' concerns that contract periods might be becoming unduly long, and early termination charges excessively high.

These may hinder them from terminating the services they receive and switching between operators.

--938Live

superlibra SG

Finally..

FireIce SG

this deserves a yay!

bladez87 SG

YEA!!!!

keeptouch SG

so from 1st march next year can we still have discount on the price of the handphone when we sign a 2 year contract?

Poignant SG

i dont understand leh

TrueHeart SG

i dont understand leh

Hi Poignant,

The three changes shown on this report (Note that there are other changes as well) are:

1) Contracts can no longer be longer than 24 months.

2) Instead of paying a fixed fee for terminating the contract before the stated period is up, we will now pay lesser and lesser when we terminate the contract later. In short, the amount which we will have to pay is proportionate to the amount of time left on the contract.

3) For early termination charges, they must not include fees which can be avoided as soon as the customer terminates his/her service.

Cheers.

keeptouch SG

Hi Poignant,

The three changes shown on this report (Note that there are other changes as well) are:

1) Contracts can no longer be longer than 24 months.

3) For early termination charges, they must not include fees which can be avoided as soon as the customer terminates his/her service.

Cheers.

1. All the HP contracts that I heard of are all 24 months only leh. I have never heard of HP contracts that are more than 24 months leh

2. All along is like that already what. For singtel, if you terminate in the first 2 years you pay $250. If you terminate within 1 year you pay $150

TrueHeart SG

1. All the HP contracts that I heard of are all 24 months only leh. I have never heard of HP contracts that are more than 24 months leh

2. All along is like that already what. For singtel, if you terminate in the first 2 years you pay $250. If you terminate within 1 year you pay $150

Hi keeptouch,

The changes does not apply to only handphone contracts, they apply to Fixed Line and Broadband Services contracts as well.

As mentioned by you, Singtel's previous scheme decreases termination fees on an annual basis, but under the new rules, it will be changed to a monthly basis. For example, you will have to pay $250 if you terminate the services in the first month, $240 in the second month, $230 in the third month... so on and so forth.

I hope this help clear your queries.

Cheers.

keeptouch SG

Hi keeptouch,

The changes does not apply to only handphone contracts, they apply to Fixed Line and Broadband Services contracts as well.

I hope this help clear your queries.

Cheers.

Only broadband and mio plans have more than 24 months contract. If they reduce the contract period to just 24 months, it just means that consumers will pay a higher price for the labtop/desktop/hp that comes cheap with the contract.

For example, you sign a 30 months broadband contract and get a free labtop. Now it gets reduced to 24 months broadband contract and you have to pay $100 for the labtop instead of getting it free.

So in the end consumers don't really benefit from this scheme too