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Sprint Nextel fogives early termination fee for government subscribers

By: , IntoMobile
Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 12:22 PM

Nextel logoIt seems that early termination fees (ETF) are getting more and more media coverage as of late. We’ve made it quite clear that we don’t like ETFs, and with the FCC having whetted their ETF-appetite with their own investigation in to eliminating contract-termination fees, Sprint Nextel has made the move to eliminate ETFs for its government-users.

Government employees would “never, never accept such penalty amounts,” according to Nextel’s then-VP Scott Wiener. And, so, Sprint Nextel has nixed the dreaded ETF for any subscriber toiling away at their bureaucratic government job in some in some nondescript with no windows.

Unfortunately, while Sprint seems to think that government-types won’t just lie down and pay those ridiculous ETFs, it looks like the No. 3 US wireless carrier views us regular subscribers as push overs. At least Sprint will be launching pro-rated ETFs…

[Via: FOXnews]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • Mark

    I work in the wireless industry, and while I agree that ETF’s can be onerous, consider the fact that on average it takes a wireless company 8 months to a year to make a penny off a new customer. This is because of the subsidizing of phones. So while it’s definitely the carrier’s responsibility to keep the customer happy and wanting to stay, there’s a huge risk in giving away practically free phones and letting customers just cancel after, say, three months. You’d end up with a monopoly in the business (basically the last company standing), and suddenly prices would skyrocket. Just the inconvenient truth about how the industry works…