On Mon, 4 Sep 2006, Nick May wrote:
> This just shows that the market is distorted.
Indeed. But the distortion may just as much be operators doing the usual
Japanese, "we must do it this way for no good reason" thing as anything
else.
For example, operators can do do charge cancellation fees; for many
years Docomo has had a cancellation fee when you subscribe to a one-year
discount plan and then terminate early. And what you pay to upgrade your
phone on an existing contract varies substantially based on how long
you've had your old phone. So why not tie a cheap phone price to a one-
or two-year plan, and charge a substantial cancellation fee for that,
as operators in the U.S. do? It would make it much less worthwhile to
"game" the system, without having to go to the trouble of trumping up
charges against people who've found a point of arbitrage.
Or just offer leases. I would happily pay a thousand yen a month to
lease a phone for a year, if I could upgrade at yearly or slightly
longer intervals. Though what they'd do with the used phones is anyone's
guess.
cjs
--
Curt Sampson <cjs_at_cynic.net> +81 90 7737 2974
Received on Tue Sep 5 17:10:11 2006