The FCC has been eye-balling the four major U.S. carriers regarding Early Termination Fee’s and when Google dropped their bombshell, it certainly raised some eyebrows. Thankfully, Google has thought twice about their own ERF on the Nexus One. Starting today, Google has reduced the “Equipment Recovery Fee” on the HTC Nexus One from $350 to $150. While its better and a recognition of the disapproval of the original outrageous fee, all the major players still have a long way to go to solving this issue.

Still, if you’re wanting to cancel your T-Mobile service (You had better not) within the first 120 days you can pay $150 plus T-Mobile’s $200 ETF, costing you a total of $350, whereas before it was $550. Nice move Google, but how about getting rid of the ERF all together? Statement from Google courtesy of the Wall Street Journal below:

“A Google representative said the company had been working with T-Mobile to lower the equipment fee.”

“Google’s overall financial philosophy with regard to operator service plans remains unchanged: We make no profit from commissions from operators or from equipment recovery fees, and our recovery fees are based on operator charges to Google for early termination of service,” the company said in a statement.

Feel free to voice your opinions in the comments!

WallStreetJournal

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Bringing pack Catherine Zeta Jones to spearhead your MobileMakeover campaign is a mighty fine idea and T-mobile, we thank thank thank you for doing so. That being said, it appears as though everything can’t be sunshine and rainbows. Word came down yesterday that starting July 27^th, customers will start receiving snail mail notifications stating that effective September 1^st T-mobile is increasing their per minute overage charge. In an effort to better align with the competition as the email states, T-mobile is attempting to ensure that customers receive the best value by notifying them if they are on a plan that is not in line with their usage. We are still trying to clarify what customers means, though we told it means all postpaid, nongovernmental, non flex-pay users but we’re waiting for clarification.

The answer to the question at least some of you have already started asking yourself is yes, T-mobile is stating customers affected by this change can leave ETF free. Though again, we emphasize details are still coming forward and we can’t saying anything concrete until we learn more.

• FlexPay and Business/Government specific rate plans are not impacted by this change.
• Overage for Single Line rate plans under $59.99 will increase to $0.45. All other Single Line rate plans will increase to $0.40.
• Overage for pooling rate plans under $89.99 will increase to $0.45. All other pooling rate plans will increase to $0.40
• The average increase for customers who have usage charges is expected to be $3.34. Certain customers affected by this rate change will be notified via direct mail beginning July 27 and will be able to cancel their contracts without incurring Early Termination Fees.

Related Posts:

• Google Reduces Nexus One “Equipment Recovery Fee”