Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

> 35 cents a minute? Gawd! If my mother or my stepmother had lived to
> see cell phones, they would have talked sixteen hours per day and the
> family would have been bankrupt!

35¢ a minute is actually pretty low for overage charges.

That's actually one of the big advantages of prepaid, you don't pay
outrageous overages, you just pay the normal per minute rate. Prepaid is
available on Verizon's network for as little as 5.3¢ per minute.

Sprint had a deal for a while that got rid of the huge overage charges,
called "Fair and Flexible."

It's a double-edged sword for the carriers. If they made the overages
reasonable then subscribers would be less careful about going over, and
use more than their plan minutes without much concern. However that
would cause some subscribers to move to lower tiers, which would cost
the carrier money.