High costs for changing your cell service.(THE CONSUMERS UNION PERSPECTIVE)

Thinking about buying a different cell phone? Increasing your minutes? Adding a number? Even minor changes can cause a two-year contract to morph into three, four, or more. That's the biggest complaint CONSUMER REPORTS subscribers have about their wireless service.

Most wireless phone contracts also include steep "early-termination fees" to discourage consumers from looking for a better deal. They work. The most recent survey on cell-phone service in 20 metropolitan areas by the Consumer Reports National Research Center found that half of the customers who were considering switching carriers were deterred from doing so by the penalties, which typically range from $150 to $240 per phone number. So a family plan with four numbers could cost you upward of $800 to cancel.

Hefty early-termination penalties have now spread to some high-speed Internet services. Those fees are even more problematic, since broadband service is generally limited by territory. Qwest, for example, doesn't provide the service in New York City. So a customer in a two-year DSL contract with Qwest who moves from Portland, Ore., to New York will be forced to switch companies and pay a $200 penalty for early cancellation. Since no more than two choices typically exist for broadband service in any given market, consumers have few options for getting a more reasonable deal.

There are no federal laws on the use of long-term contracts and penalties for call and broadband services, but some state regulators and law enforcers have acted against abusive practices. In 2004, the California Public Utilities Commission levied a multimillion-dollar fine against Cingular Wireless, in part for imposing penalties on customers who canceled contracts because of inadequate service.

Fighting back. An investigation by 32 state attorneys general into three leading cell-phone carriers resulted, in 2004, in a three-year ...