Cingular Charging New Fees To Some Customers

Apr. 30 - KGO (KGO) -- Do you still have an old analog cell phone? If so, you may want to check your phone bill because you may paying an extra fee because you haven't upgraded. This is another example of people getting caught between old technology and the new. Question is, who should pay for these constant changes? You the consumer? Or the companies making upgrades?

Ed Wolf of Lafayette has been a happy cingular customer for eight years....paying 30 bucks a month for plenty of minutes. Then one day he opens his bill and finds a funny 5 dollar charge.

Ed Wolf, Cingular customer: "I called them and asked them what it was and they said it was a charge to shut our system down."

The fee is for staying on Cingular's old analog network. It'll be gone by next year and most of their customers are already on the new digital network.

John Borg, Cingular customer: "I didn't appreciate it. I don't think it's justified."

Five dollars may not seem like a lot, but he says it adds up.

John Borg: "I have like eight bills here that show the charge and that times a lot of customers is a lot of money."

Ed Wolf found out upgrading also means a new contract that costs more and gives fewer minutes.

Ed Wolf: "There's probably a lot of other customers in the same situation as me and they don't even realize it.

Consumer lawyer Bill Nusbaum says Cingular's making plenty without the fee.

Bill Nusbaum: "They just announced first quarter earnings of doubling their profits, and then they want to ding about 8 percent of their customers with this $5 dollars a month."

They just announced first quarter earnings of doubling their profit and then they want to ding about 8 percent of their customers with this $5 dollars a month.''

Cingular says most customers have already upgraded. The $5 fee is justified because it costs more per customer to maintain the old network.

Those lower monthly rates are no longer offered, but Cingular will give perks like free roaming, national coverage, and they promise fewer dropped calls.

Cingular also offered Ed Wolf a free razor phone if he upgrades. They offered John Borg 200 extra minutes, but Wolf says he'd rather hang on to his simple phone.

Ed Wolfe: "to me a phone is a phone. i don't need all these bells and whistles.

And Borg?

John Borg: "I switched to a new provider."

One of the big impacts is a lot of customers who were grandfathered in with low monthly rates are going to lose them when analog system ends next year. You may recall that was allowed by an FCC ruling four years ago and this is one of those ripple effects.

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