Pogue's mainly concerned with the silly fees levied on consumers for certain actions despite said actions not costing carriers hardly any money at all (text messaging, we're looking at you). One that we didn't even realize is the sneaky tactic of keeping users on the line for extra time to hear inane instructions like "When you're done recording your message, you may hang up." If you're out of minutes, your carrier is actually going to charge you to listen to those! That's worthy of a good fist-shake, or better yet, some Congressional intervention. [New York Times]

Current Wall Street Journal writer Jason Zweig used to work for a Time-Warner-owned magazine, and when Time Warner merged with AOL, he and his colleagues all received free AOL email accounts. Zweig gave his to his wife, who used it up until last year.

But recently, Zweig started receiving phone calls from AOL's customer service reps in India, saying he owed $103.60 for an upgrade he knew nothing about. Turns out the terms of agreement he signed years ago may (or may not) have included a section allowing AOL to upgrade his service and charge him for it. Zweig point-blank refused to pay for any ridiculous upgrade that may well not exist, and AOL tried to bargain him down to $85.

The argument devolved into AOL insisting they would attempt to collect through legal channels, and Zweig welcoming them to, as he plans to file a fraud report before they'd be able to do anything of the sort. We guess when you've floundered as much as AOL has in recent years, all you can do is try to extort old customers. It's just bad luck one of their targets happens to write for one of the country's largest news organizations. [Wall Street Journal]

The key was in metering and charging correctly for overage, apparently, something that trials in Beaumont, Texas helped to iron out. This concept of charging penalties for going over your limit, like your cellphone provider does, works and is probably profitable, moreso than the hard-stop download caps that other providers are enforcing.

The news isn't that TW is looking at 40GB caps, which we knew earlier. The news is that they're going to be looking at potential caps higher than 40GB. In addition, there's a lower-tiered plan for people who want to use less than 5GB a month.

Time Warner's also bringing out usage trackers so people can view their current status, which means there's no surprises when you get billed for 4000GB instead of 40GB. [AP]

If it is true, Sprint will probably try and weasel their way out of this when you call—so you need to stick to your guns. If you have already paid and ETF to Sprint, you may want to check out the class action settlement to see if you qualify for a $90 reimbursement. [Thanks Steve!]

By taking a subsidy on your phone up front (such as on the iPhone 3G), you're paying less in exchange basically telling AT&T that you're going to stick with them for 2 years. If you want to leave, you can pay that $175 and get out of your contract. In this case, with the iPhone 3G, it basically lets you walk away with a iPhone 3G that you can use on T-Mobile for $374. That's not too shabby.

But a recent AP report said that Sprint waived all ETFs to a government agency that was signed up with it, essentially because "the government will never, never accept such penalty amounts." [Ars Technica]

Here's another interesting detail. FedEx is supposedly delivering iPhone shipments on Friday, which means that 6PM release time was totally calculated to make sure there are actually phones in stock when the doors open.

Also, there's going to be teams of FedEx drivers making the iPhone runs—so unless you plan on wrestling two men instead of one to make off with an iPhone shipment, we wouldn't risk it.

iPhone data plan dubbed the iPlan? [Boy Genius Report - Thanks Tim!]

The status now: between $34.99 and $79.99 for data and $39.99 to $99.99 for voice. If you're going for the lowest numbers, that's $80 a month sans fees and tax. Not too bad, but all that gets you is 450 minutes a month (your data is unlimited). For non-BlackBerry devices, unlimited data can be had for $19.99. For devices like the Treo who want BlackBerry connect, it's $49.99.

Here's some good news. It seems AT&T's cancellation fee will only be $175, which is much less than what you'd pay in unused data and voice in your second year of service. It may be better just to cancel and eat the $175.

In the end, if you last the entire two years, you're going to wind up at least $2,218.12 (not including tax, plus $100 more for the 8GB model) poorer if you're getting the iPhone.

Apple's iPhone: Adding Up the Costs [Business 2.0]

This time, Boy Genius confirms that he cancelled two of his lines using this process, which means that it could work, but YMMV. We're not suggesting you leave T-Mobile, but those of you who still have a year left on your contracts but are anxious for the iPhone may want to plan accordingly. – Jason Chen

T-Mobile increasing SMS rates, get out while you still can [BoyGeniusReport via Crunchgear]