Don’t sign a contract between March and June, it’s a bad idea – at least that’s what I’ve discovered. In March of 2009 I decided to treat myself to a new phone so I purchase an iPhone 3G. It was great and I was happy, until July rolled around. The iPhone 3GS was announced and here I was with a few month old phone that was significantly slower and had less features (for example: multitasking and voice dialing) than if I had waited a few months. Regardless, I wasn’t too disappointed and I carried on using my phone.

Skip ahead a year or so and with more updates came a drastically slower phone. Anyone who has used an up-to-date iPhone 3G will understand the pain I’m going through. The phone is slow, it takes a long time to do anything, and it’s just become less functional. The phone is to the point where email is basically the only internet function I can do remotely reasonably and even that is significantly slower than even a 3GS counterpart. It’s time for a new phone.

I think that most people know that every cell phone company has a customer retention (or customer relations) department that deals with giving the exclusive deals that you don’t get from the first line of service. From my understanding their idea is to keep you from jumping ship. Between my wife, my in-laws and myself, over the last 4 years I’ve seen 3 different renewals, all of which have yielded good results from this department. We’ve never been trying to ask for the world, just ask for what other companies will offer. In my past dealings with them our contracts have always been over and expired; however, this time I’m swimming in muddy waters as my contract still has 5 months left in it.

Through my work I’m offered a deal through Telus that is quite a bit better than my current plan (although it isn’t the best plan I’ve seen either). I’ve been with Rogers for awhile so I’d rather not buy out my contract; however, if that’s what it takes I will. I called up Rogers customer relations and I was told that they can’t come close to the Telus deal. I even told Rogers that I’m not set on the features, so I’d be willing to switch out one feature for another depending on what it was; however, it was suggested that I might have to change over to Telus to get the features I want. Now you might be thinking that the plan I’m asking for is just too cheap for Rogers to match; however, I know that is not the case. My wife basically has a better plan than what I’m asking for and she only got her plan last year. I was told by a co-worker that when they switched to Telus, Rogers didn’t do anything for them either. This seems to indicate to me that their customer relations department has had a switch in focus and doesn’t have near the power they should (and other companies do).

Now, getting back to my opening statement, March is a bad time to buy a phone. The dilemma before me is that if I decide against buying out my contract and decide to wait it out, I’ll end up in the same situation I was last time. A lot of great phones come out between March and July and I’d hate to end up with something I regretted (again). With the iPhone 4S being such a small update (and lets face it, it really was), a lot of the internet is speculating that Apple might get back to its July-ish release month (there was a rumour that the 4S was delayed for parts issues). I have to figure out what route I want to go down. Do I want to cancel out of Rogers now and give my business to Telus, or do I want to just ride it out until next summer and see what the market unveils. Although I have a lot of apps purchased for the iPhone, the Android market is gaining some great potential and who knows what it’ll be like next summer.

Although there is a lot for me to consider, before I make my decision I plan on trying one last ditch effort to squeeze some life out of my phone. I plan on wiping my iPhone 3G back to factory settings. I’m going to clear it completely, only add the apps I want and add my contacts back by hand. If this can’t get me some better performance, there’s no hope. Of course, when I do, I’ll make sure to report back.