The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday declined to review an appeal by Sprint and T-Mobile in their bid to prohibit states from placing any restrictions on their billing practices, such as prohibiting adding unadvertised line items. Federal law prohibits states from regulating wireless carriers' rates, but allows them to regulate terms and conditions. Several states are pursuing truth-in-billing laws; but the wireless carriers want to prohibit such regulation, claiming that it somehow regulates "rates." The real issue is that they do not want to allow states to protect customers from unfair business practices, such as hiding costs in line items when advertising a billing rate.

Our (cold-weather) hats are off to NASUCA, and all those who worked long and hard to bring truth in billing to this branch of the huge telecommunications industry. CUB will keep this ruling in mind as we look into options for protecting Oregon's telecom customers. Consumers in states with truth-in-billing laws will have a clearer idea of what they are getting into financially when they sign a wireless contract. Perhaps one day soon consumers in Oregon will, too.