

To the US wireless industry:  stop treating your customers as prisoners - yewweitan
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/06/us-vs-them-american-wireless-industry-come-meet-me-at-camera-3.html

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makecheck
This article has a great set of examples.

I have a phone that is many years old. I have gone to web sites for U.S.
carriers to try to find a replacement, and I often _leave the entire site
without finding a single worthwhile offering_. If I didn't know better, I'd
guess that they were trying _not_ to sell any of their products.

Even if I forget the phones, and just look at the plans, all I see is
overpriced garbage. While I could afford $99/month, I see no reason to pay
that to keep a stupid phone working; $30/month is more than enough.

Not that you actually pay whatever they say. Here is a list of additional
fees, verbatim, from my last bill:

    
    
      - "Federal - Univ Serv Assess Non-LD" $1.15
      - "State - Univ Serv Assessment"      $0.80
      - "State - Margin Fee Reimbursement"  $0.34
      - "Regulatory Charge"                 $0.40
      - "Administrative Charge"             $0.99.
    

In other words, $3.68 per month, or $44 more per year, of absolute crap that
is not in the advertised cost of service. And that's not even counting things
like charging for incoming text messages (which they do).

I couldn't agree with this article more; the wireless industry has lost its
mind, and it needs to be fixed.

