Friday, January 14, 2011

Want To Break Your AT&T Contract And Head For Verizon? Here’s How Much It’ll Cost You

With word of an impending Verizon iPhone looming, it seems as if the question on just about every other person’s mind is the same: “So, uh.. how much would it cost me to get out of my AT&T contract?”

Thanks to pro-rated Early Termination Fees and one or two somewhat confusing contract changes that have gone down in the past few years, it can be tough to figure out exactly how much jumping ship would cost you (One arm? Half an arm, and one leg?) Fortunately, the Internet is here to do what it does best: make difficult things not so difficult.

WolframAlpha user MM was kind enough to throw together this handy dandy ETF calculator, which’ll do all the number crunching for you. Did you buy your iPhone after AT&T doubled ETFs on June 1st? Don’t sweat it — it can take that into account.

Protip: If you do choose to switch carriers, don’t call up and cancel your account unless you don’t mind losing your phone number. 9 times out of 10, that number will be lost in the ether. Instead, call up your new carrier and have them assist you in the porting process.

[Photo Credit: Ren Ehrhardt on Flickr]