Kevin Martin, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has come forward with a plan to control the early termination fees.
Recently there have been a large number of cell phone companies who have faced class-action lawsuits in a number of states along with pending bills in Congress in order to force the companies to stop charging these ridiculous fees for customers dropping services. Yet the companies claim that the fees are there to cover the costs of cell phones which are given as a part of the long term contracts.
Kevin Martin’s proposal would mean keeping the fees related to the cost of the cell phones included in the contracts. He also said that the charges should be distributed proportionally according to the length of the contract although Verizon and AT&T have started to pro-rate their ETFs.
On the other hand, state officials are not happy at all with this proposal claiming that their concern for consumer protection is much more important than the complaints received regarding this issue.
