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Sep. 17, 2009

T-Mobile USA says it has cancelled its plans to start charging customers $1.50 per month to get a paper copy of their mobile invoice in the mail.

T-Mobile had recently informed its 33 million customers that the monthly fee would go into effect Sep. 12 and apply to anyone who didn't sign up for a paperless billing plan, in which bills can only be viewed on the Internet.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose office had issued T-Mobile a warning over the planned fee, said in a statement that the company couldn't legally impose new charges without giving customers the option of ending their service contracts early.

After a a flurry of complaints and many notices of dissatisfaction from customers and a few threats of legal action, the wireless carrier changed its mind. In a statement posted on a company Web page, T-Mobile said it had decided not to implement the fee, "for now."

"Instead, we'll be taking more time to determine the fairest way possible to encourage people to go paperless," it said.

"My office will not sit back and let a company change its prices under the guise of "going green," Cuomo added.

T-Mobile's main competitors, Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel all offer customers a free paper copy of a basic bill, but impose charges if customers want a paper copy of a more detailed bill with itemized calls.

Owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile USA has also been charging $1.99 for a detailed paper copy of a bill, and will continue to do so.

Meanwhile, there are still some T-Mobile users out there that are nevertheless unhappy with the company's business practices as it concerns its billing changes.

So the question is, will this trigger a typical "Switch to us-- we DON'T charge for paper bills" from the other wireless operators?

It will be interesting to see if it does...

There's no question that this segment is getting more and more competitive as each day goes by.

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    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: T-Mobile USA.