As well as locking us in, the long term contract of one or two years may be what's fixing our prices. After years of renewing every two with Verizon I haven't renewed for a new phone this time. We'll have to see what happens. I've become disapointed over time with their business terms. They cut the renewal bonus toward a new phone in half to $50. More phone features are crippled to force you to buy content from them and eliminated the low speed data for voice minutes to force users into expensive broadband contracts. Verizon's network is good but they have thrown away my customer loyalty.