Phones 4u has announced the national rollout of a new mobile contract called ‘Just Upgrade My Phone’. It’s been trialling JUMP in a hundred stores since May last year and expects the scheme to be available in all its outlets by May 2012.

JUMP breaks the traditional mobile phone contract into two parts. One contract is with the network operator for the basic tariff offering minutes, text messages and data. There’s also a separate contract with Phones 4u for the handset. Both run for a minimum term of two years and will add an extra three or four pounds to the average monthly price of a standard contract.

There’s no conventional upgrade fee when a customer wants to change phone. Instead, they can trade in their handset - with Phones 4u promising a guaranteed value of at least £100 within the first 12 months if the phone is still working and undamaged. The JUMP handset contract is then recalculated depending on the value of the phone and the remaining contract term before the customer signs up to a new 24-month period.

Alistair Firth, Director of Customer Development at Phones 4u, said “Technology is moving fast and innovative handsets are launching all the time on the market but to date there’s been a disconnect between the frequency of smartphone releases and the length of mobile phone contracts on offer. We want to give our customers the freedom to own the very latest smartphones like the iPhone 4S without having to wait 18-24 months for an upgrade. The idea for JUMP was born out of research we conducted that revealed people were frustrated by the inability to upgrade their handsets sooner”.