Moving to address the “bill shock” cell-phone consumers get when they exceed their monthly agreement for voice, text or data, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed that wireless carriers be required to send a warning text when overage fees are about to be applied.
“We are hearing from consumers about unpleasant surprises on their bills,” said Joel Gurin, chief of the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, in a public notice. “We’ve gotten hundreds of complaints about bill shock. But this is an avoidable problem. Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.”
The proposal forces wireless carriers to decide whether to oppose the measure as unnecessary regulation or embrace it as a service, perhaps with a price tag that might be embraced by the budget-weary.
On Tuesday, Steve Largent, CEO and president of CTIA — the Wireless Association, an international organization representing wireless carriers, noted that the nation’s top four carriers already allow consumers to check their usage with simple key combinations.
“Even though the ‘hundreds of complaints’ that the public notice references is less than four ten-thousandths of a percentage of the industry’s total subscribers, the industry strives to serve and provide all of our 285 million customers with the necessary tools to have a positive experience,” Largent said.
Kirk Parsons, a wireless analyst for J.D. Power and Associates who says he recently had a bill-shock experience of his own, predicted that overage alerts would be popular. “I think consumers would love it,” said Parsons. “It just happened to me, and it would have been nice if I was alerted that I was going over.”
“The carriers may fight it [or] ]they may add this feature into existing plans and charge a nominal fee a month like handset insurance, just…