I have about four months remaining in my twenty-four month contract with Vodafone Australia, and my trusty handset has become decidedly less trusty of late. It's been doing things like deciding not to charge, fading out the screen and so on. I'm sure it's repairable, but with four months left before I can renew my contract and get a free phone anyway, that's not really a worthwhile investment.

So I go into my trusty Vodafone dealer, and ask them what the options are.

Apparently, I'm not eligible for a phone upgrade until six weeks before my contract is up (which is basically so close to my final bill there's no difference), so I would have to pay out all of the remainder of my current contract up front. Admittedly, that's only about $120, but it's the principle of the thing. If the dealer had offered me a substantial discount, I'd have signed up then and there, probably getting myself a pretty expensive GPRS phone in the process.

Instead, I was offered absolutely no incentive to remain with Vodafone. Since we now have number portability, the net difference in cost and convenience between me staying with Vodafone or switching to a new provider is... zilch. Hence, a certain sale was turned into a vaguely pissed off customer with an incentive to see if he can get a better bargain elsewhere.

Nice one. Very clever marketing.