$17.5 Million to settle "Early Termination" lawsuit

Here's an interesting item: "A proposed national settlement has been reached in a class action proceeding alleging that Sprint, Nextel and/or Sprint Nextel's use of a flat-rate early termination fee (ETF) in its customer wireless agreement violate the Federal Communications Act and consumer protection laws of the states and of the United States. Sprint Nextel denies any liability or wrongdoing but has agreed to settle under the terms of the Settlement Agreement."

So Sprint denies any liability but is going to pay big bucks to make this go away.

Bottom line: why would anyone have a phone with a contract? It's pretty clear that the contract phone companies are the only parties that benefit from the contract. Users don't.

Prepaid cell phones are the way to go. No contracts are necessary!