Take a Close Look at Cellular Services Before You Sign Up

Offers for 'free, unilimited access to the wireless Internet' are often too good to be true

You may have noticed advertisements by some cellular services offering "free" and "unlimited" digital cellular access to the "wireless Internet."

Before signing up for such a plan, watch out! At least in some cases, the "free and unlimited wireless Internet access" actually consists only of access to a tiny set of "captive" web sites run by selected partners of the cell phone service.

With that type of plan, you won't be able to access all URLs of your choice (such as the UO's home page, or even popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo), unless the cellular provider has preselected those sites for you or you agree to pay an additional monthly fee.

Obviously, if you can only go to a tiny set of preselected sites, that's hardly "unlimited" access. If you have to purchase premium service, that's hardly "free." And if you can only access a few dozen sites, that's hardly today's "Internet."

We believe this sort of offer is misleading and unacceptable, and strongly urge you to avoid any "wireless Internet" cellular provider that attempts to offer this sort of crippled "free" wireless Internet service plan. Don't let some cellular provider attempt to restrict your usage and dictate what sites you'll visit. You can and should make that decision for yourself.