Massachusetts Plans a Cell Phone Bill of Rights

freaktheclown writes "Via Engadget, the news that Massachusetts' state legislature is considering a cell phone bill of rights, which would 'limit contracts to one year, require easier to understand monthly bills, and force carriers to fix dead zones.' You may recall that California adopted a similar bill of rights last year before it was shelved last January."

Comments

All of these "rights"...

[jxyama]

Are carriers "allowed" to adhere to offer these "rights" by raising the price? Why don't we let the economics of the industry take care of this? T-Mobile offers one year contracts, but makes you (generally) pay more for the phones. You can't eat the cake (heavily subsidized phones) and have it too (short contract).

These problems can be fixed by the market

[Omnifarious]

I don't see a lot of strong evidence that that's not the case. One danger in imposing caps and restrictions like this is that it provides a convenient collusion point for all carriers. The government mandates this is the worst we can do, and gosh-darn-it, that restriction is awfully chafin, we would like to do even worse than that, but this stupid regulation prevents us, so we're stuck here doing the worst we're allowed.

While doing things that reduce the barriers to switching to a competing carrier are good, and making sure that no one carrier can ever get a lock on a particular market would also be good, I don't see a lot of point in these other restrictions.

What I would like to see in a 'cell phone bill of rights' are things like "I have the right to not be called for commercial (profit or non-profit) purposes by entitities that I have not given explicit permission to call me. And if you do receive any such calls, you have the right to not be charged the airtime for them.".

Commercials are an ever-present creeping kudzu that will take over any vehicle of communication if given half-a-chance. Even google is starting to put commercials inline with search results and only marking them off with a colored box.

unlocked phones

[pyros]

The only requirement I'm waiting to see is unlocked phones so the carriers can't keep stifling cool new technology. Verizon really screws customers be disabling/removing nice features that the manufacturers put in and advertise.