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Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
Get Out Of Your Sprint Contract ETF Free Until The End of the Month
Flee Your Sprint Contract Without Paying an ETF
Sprint Finally Pro-Rating Early Termination Fees
How to Get Out of a Cell Contract Without Paying an ETF in Many Not-So-Easy Steps
Judge Rules Early Termination Fees Are Illegal and Violate California Law
T-Mobile Raises Text Message Prices (Meaning You Can Ditch Your Contract)
Cellphone Companies' Early Termination Fees Compared
T-Mobile Makes Early Termination Fees Less Ouchy in Confusing Increments
AT&T Lawyer Says Early Termination Fees Are Good For Consumers

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ManiacFive
12/04/09

In reply to Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
I'm not sure how it works in the states, could somebody clarify this for me? Using o2 in the UK for an example, if you sign up for a 18 month contract and want to cancel, you'd be expected to pay the amount of monthly line rental x months remaining on contract

Is the early termination fee Verizon applies a flat fee? regardless of when the early termination occours? Because that does sound like BS to me.
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OMG! Ponies!
12/04/09

In reply to Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
My only problem with ETFs is from a legal standpoint.

Penalty fees are not legally permissible. As the motion court (correctly) held in Ayyad v. Sprint, early termination fees are impermissible because they do not constitute liquidated damages.

If carriers want to claim that ETFs are liquidated damages for subsidizing the costs, then let them prove that in admissible form to beyond a preponderance of the evidence.

It's not about morality; it's about legality.
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Badlands99
12/04/09

@OMG! Ponies!: Then clearly this is a job for the judicial branch, not the legislative branch.
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OMG! Ponies!
12/04/09

@Badlands99: Most problems can be solved through enforcement of existing law as opposed to creation of new law.
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Badlands99
12/04/09

@OMG! Ponies!: Thank you for that refreshing bit of reason in this damp pit of lunacy.

We already have an insane amount of laws, we hardly need new ones about cell phones.
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OMG! Ponies!
12/04/09

@Badlands99: Not a problem. Our country seems to think that "judge-made" law is somehow inferior. However, judge-made law often injects a fair amount of reason into vague, ambiguous, or otherwise deficient legislation.

This is more brightline-philia (a nasty fetish where people think that there needs to be a law to cover every one of life's possibilities). This legislation simply doesn't need to be passed. Basic fundamentals of contract law that have existed for generations can easily be brought to bear on the question of the propriety of ETFs.

We have judges for a reason: to interpret law, i.e. to take existing law and apply it to a set of circumstances, thereby refining the law.
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Duckspwn
12/04/09

In reply to Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
Everyone, please raise your hand if you do not want to get involved in this argument. *raises hand*
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Mayor McRib
12/04/09

In reply to Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
I don't have a problem with ETF's, I just have a problem with them being doubled. If they want to charge $350 they had better be giving away their best smart phones for free. I broke my contract with them when I decided that an iPhone was more important that impeccable phone service, guess what, I paid the fee ($110 due to it going down every month of service) and went about my business. There is no such thing as a free phone, get over it.
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Alfisted
12/04/09

In reply to Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
The carriers have painted themselves into a corner with the subsidy model. There's no question they'd like out of it but none can afford to be first. A law banning ETFs altogether might have the unintended consequence of ending subsidies.

Despite the risk, I'd like to see it happen. I wonder if a similar desire by VZ is behind the seemingly poor timing of their increased ETFs.
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Kaiser-Machead
12/04/09

In reply to Senator Introduces Bill to Smack Down Early Termination Fees
If the ETF is a big issue for you, don't buy a phone on a contract. It's incentive to keep you from leaving while you pay about half or less on the price of a brand new phone. I understand why people have an issue with it, but those are the breaks if you want to sign into an obligation and get a subsidy price as your tradeoff.

Texting prices are far more bullshit than ETF's.
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STiger
12/04/09

@Kaiser-Machead: The upsetting thing is that the contract costs more than the phone...at least for me, anyway...
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Guy Joseph Wikum
12/04/09

@STiger: The problem here is that the cost of the phone is not real. For the most part, you can't just go buy the phone you like, then pick the carrier you like. The guys building the phones don't compete against each other, not in any real, direct sense. It's all about one carrier having the coolest phone. If we want a real, competative marketplace, any phone needs to work with any carrier, without any contract. The 'price' of the phone would go down, and the cost of service would go down as well. (The quality of service might drop as well-- sometimes, we get what we pay for...).
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Badongadoodle
12/04/09

@Kaiser-Machead: Perhaps - but $20 for UNLIMITED texts per month sounds like a deal to most.
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Kaiser-Machead
12/04/09

@Badongadoodle: The problem is that it's not a good deal. Not at all. $20 a month for unlimited of something that doesn't cost the telco much of anything at all is crap.
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Christian Pacheco
12/04/09

@Kaiser-Machead: It's called capitalism. they will continue to charge as long as people are willing to pay for it. Text message its a luxury service, same as data. The thing is people are too addicted to it. Hopefully Google Voice will bring some good competition to the table. Just my $0.02
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Joe Stoner
12/04/09

@Kaiser-Machead: It may not cost the telco much of anything to trasmit (although there are other costs involved in supported a text message system). But the $20/month is based on what the service is worth to consumers, not what it costs for providers.
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Alfisted
12/04/09

@Guy Joseph Wikum: In the US, making "any phone" work with "any carrier" would lead to a sharp increase in phone prices, if it can even be done. In addition to requiring multiple radios to accommodate different network technologies, each carrier's implementation is unique and requires some degree of device specialization.
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yantelope
12/04/09

@Alfisted: You don't have to guarantee that every phone works on every network but the BS with locking phones to certain networks should end. I had a phone that wouldn't let you install java apps unless you entered a secret code which could only be found by searching the internet. The carriers had locked the ability to install games on it so they could sell you games directly. We probably need some sort of antitrust legislation to stop locking phones to networks. That would create true choice in cell phone networks and actually create some competition.
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Alfisted
12/04/09

@yantelope: The specific situation you faced does not require government intervention. Carriers have come to realize that the era of exclusive carrier control of content is ending and the market is opening up rapidly. It's not unlike what happened to AOL after its first few years of being a one stop shop for all things Internet.

If that sort of freedom is important to you, I strongly recommend an Android or Windows phone. iPhone also offers a lot of choice with respect to apps, but within the context of Apple's monolithic control.

As far as locking phones to a specific network, there are legitimate technical reasons why most carriers are not enthusiastic about putting a competitor's phone on their network. That said, most if not all carriers will now provide the unlocking code for your device, assuming your contract has termed.
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AmphetamineCrown
12/04/09

@yantelope: There are very few carriers that will not unlock phones for you if you are out of contract. The iPhone is a notable exception. There, as I understand it, the locking is required by Apple.
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AmphetamineCrown
12/04/09

@Guy Joseph Wikum: Your comment doesn't really recognize the global nature of the mobile phone business. Think, for just one second, about the companies that were on top of the phone market 10 years ago--or even 5. Where are they now? We are talking about MASSIVE shifts in market share. Christ, Apple is a new entrant and has a huge share of the smartphone market in terms of new sales. You claim that somehow that market isn't competitive?

The costs of phones are most definitely "real."
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1977twenty3
12/04/09

@Alfisted: I call BS on this. The rest of the world uses GSM (sim cards) and barely any lock phones.

What you're talking about is CDMA (sim-cardless). It's old technology that American carriers keep around to lock you to the phone and contracts THEY decide they want you to have. That's why (until iPhone) I always bought badass phones off simoncells.com that no one in the US had, and used it on T-mobile's GSM network.

By the way, phones and service are alot cheaper overseas.
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Alfisted
12/04/09

@1977twenty3: Uhh, yeeeeah. GSM has the dominant market share but CDMA is a bit more thanan "old technology that American carriers keep around". There are 2G and or 3G CDMA networks in more than 120 countries around the world, serving more than half a billion subscribers.

It would be a huge boost for interoperability of devices if all US carriers were on GSM but the fact is, more than half of the US' wireless subs are on CDMA.
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OMG! Ponies!
11/17/08

In reply to Flee Your Sprint Contract Without Paying an ETF
Just keep your paperwork for when Sprint sends you a bill later for the ETF.

Telcos say sorts of things on the phone. Then they slam you with the ETF after agreeing to waive it. At least that was my experience with T-Mobile.
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