Mobile phones will not work unless the users subscribe with a network service provider. Most countries will have a few service providers offering mobile phone services to the users. If there is only one service provider locally, mobile phone contracts will not be necessary. In the bid for fair pricing, healthy competition and good interest of the customers, most government will allow setting up of different service providers. Competition among the providers will make sure they come up with quality services at acceptable prices. Mobile phone contracts mainly consist of pay-as-you-go, post-paid or line rental.

Pay as you go starts when the customer purchases SIM card for the phone. The SIM card has to be topped-up with calling credits to enable calls and texting. A good thing about pay as you go is, the user never need to pay more than they need to use and the bad part is sometimes the SIM runs out of money when you need to make an important call and have no money to top up. This form of line is without mobile phone contract.

Post-paid contract are easily available from 12 months to 36 months terms. High competition among networks has forced them to offer cheaper monthly contract with long talk-time and plenty of text. Most service provider also offers free mobile phone on signing of contract. The packages in the mobile phone contracts were designed specially for people with different needs. People who talks a lot on the phone can choose the option with more talk-time and vice versa for those who text a lot.

The third type of mobile phone contract is 12 months to 36 months line rental which requires users to pay a monthly fee for line rental and on top of that pay the amount they spent on texts and calls. This option is useful for people who are heavy users of mobile phones. They never have to worry about not having credits to call but the downside is most people will work up a large bill if they do not monitor their usage.

Mobile phone contracts by different service providers will always offer good bargains. Customers should always be on a look out for something better when their current contract expires.