Wireless Contract | featured news

A movement urging Verizon to get rid of wireless contracts appears to be gaining steam. A petition calling for the carrier to end contracts for smartphones and "create an affordable way for consumers to purchase their devices" had attracted more than 55,000 signatures by midday Tuesday on Change.org, the online petition platform.

U.S. consumers have had their fill of expensive, contract-based phone plans. Figures from T-Mobile USA on Thursday, added to earlier reports from other companies, indicate that the U.S. wireless industry lost subscribers from contract-based plans for the first time in the first quarter. Contract-based plans are the most lucrative ones for phone companies. The industry default over the past several decades, they account for the vast majority of revenue at the big phone companies.

Google Inc. has lowered by $200 the fee it charges customers who break a standard two-year contract for its new Nexus One phone on the T-Mobile USA Inc. network.