The U.S. wireless industry has drawn the attention of Congress, and not in a favorable way. Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, recently questioned a panel of industry experts about the state of competition in the wireless industry.

Specifically in the case of text messaging, costs have risen dramatically over the past several years. Conveniently for the service providers, this price increase has come as the use of text messaging has skyrocketed – a press release from Senator Kohl’s office stated that text messaging increased by 250% from 2007 to 2008, with over one trillion messages sent in 2008. At the same time, the average cost to the consumer rose from ten cents to twenty cents per message per message, but the cost to the companies held steady at less than a penny per message.

Further, the report from the Senator’s office states that Americans, on average, pay more for wireless service than most other developed nations, at $506 per year. Senator Kohl raised the question of whether this high cost of service is due to lack of adequate competition – just four carriers control 90% of the market.

Another current pro-business standard is the method of charging for messages and calls: in most other countries in the world, only the person placing a call or sending a message is charged. Here, of course, we have to pay both ways. Industry observers report that this standard was allowed by the FCC when the wireless industry was in its infancy, with the understanding that it would revert to the more common one-way charge once the industry was established. This, in particular, is a change that I would like to see as soon as possible.

The press release didn’t mention any action that would be taken as a result of the hearing, but the FCC has been more actively questioning the largest wireless companies since President Obama took office. Senator Kohl also offered the following commentary: “[S]maller competitors raise serious questions about practices that prevent them from being able to fairly compete. These range from exclusive deals that deny competitors access to the most in-demand cell phones, to limitations on the ability of new competitors to roam on other providers’ networks, to difficulties in obtaining needed spectrum. It is imperative that we work to remove undue barriers to competition to ensure consumers the best rates and services.”

I offer this information to you because I know that, as readers of this blog, you make an effort to stay informed as a consumer. I know that you probably have found the best fit for your needs by paying only for the minutes you use and using those minutes wisely. Perhaps we should all be getting even better deals, though.

I’ll be watching as this story develops and post about it again if any important news comes out.

It has recently come to my attention that TracFone has changed its policy with respect to certain CDMA handsets. In the early days of TracFone’s CDMA coverage, phones were assigned a “home” area based on the ZIP code in which the phone was activated. Calls made within that home area were charged at the normal rate of one airtime unit per minute talked.

If the phone was “roaming” outside of that home area, however, a phone call would cost twice as many units. Note that this applies only to older models, including the Motorola v120 and Nokia 1221, 5100, and 2285, as well as the popular Nokia 2126, which is not to be confused with the follow-up 2126i.

Within the last few months, though, users have been reporting that these older models no longer deduct double minutes for calls made from “roaming” territory. Apparently this is something that has happened without any action from the owners of these phones: they simply started working in this manner one day.

This probably won’t affect most people, but I figured it was worth mentioning either for those that do use one of those phones mentioned, or for people that used to have one of those models and really liked it, but switched to a new model to avoid the roaming chargers.

If you fall into this latter category, you may want to consider switching back to your old phone. Keep in mind that if you do, though, you’ll want to make sure you’re not switching from a phone WITH double minutes for life (DMFL) to a phone WITHOUT. In that case, you’d have to carefully consider whether making the switch will save you money.