FCC asks cellphone companies to justify early termination fees

The Federal Communications Commission asked the nation’s major telecommunications firms and Google Inc. to explain to the agency the industry’s often unpopular practice of charging consumers to end their cellphone service early, a penalty known as an early-termination fee.
The agency sent a set of questions — including asking why the fees are needed at all — in letters to AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile USA and Google.