A leading cellular phone company declined to charge the government the same expensive fees it charges consumers for canceling their contracts early, acknowledging that “the government will never, never accept such penalty amounts,” according to internal corporate e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.

The exasperating fees are the subject of a hearing Thursday at the Federal Communications Commission. The e-mails from Nextel Communications Inc. come at a duration when the FCC is considering whether to offer consumers relief from cell phone fees that the government itself appears to have avoided.

The Associated Press last month revealed details of the industry’s efforts to help consumers avoid such fees in exchange for letting companies off the hook in state courts where they are being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by angry customers.

Cell phone companies routinely charge customers $175 or more for quitting their service early.

In documents unearthed as part of one such lawsuit, employees at Nextel — now

part of Sprint Nextel Corp. — debated whether to assess a $200 termination fee to federal government subscribers under a contract with the General Services Administration.

“The government will never, never accept such penalty amounts and for the most part i think a lot of the (complaining) is real,” then-Nextel marketing vice president Scott Wiener wrote in an e-mail in January 2004. Wiener declined to comment Wednesday about his e-mail exchange.

Nextel ultimately decided against charging the fees to the government, considering, according to Sprint Nextel spokesman John Taylor, it would have been against federal procurement laws.

The e-mails obtained by the AP were marked “confidential.”

The jury in Alameda County, Calif., has the case and will be deliberating that week.

Taylor said the company is upfront with its customers about the fee and offers a variety of pricing plans.

At Thursday’s FCC hearing, wireless companies were expected to argue…

Orginal post by Top Tech News