It’s All About Timing

California’s wireless phone companies are feeling the heat for their practice of rounding customers’ usage times up to the nearest minute or nearest 30 seconds.

In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, a San Diego attorney has accused 25 of the state’s wireless firms--including regional carriers L.A. Cellular, AirTouch, Pacific Bell Mobile Services and Sprint PCS--of unfair business practices. Except for business-oriented Nextel Communications, it is common for wireless companies to round up customer usage to the next minute, charging consumers who talk for 1 minute and 36 seconds for a two-minute call, for example.

Most companies disclose their incremental billing policies, but attorney David Franklin argues that because the technology for per-second billing is readily available, the continuation of per-minute billing amounts to unlawfully forcing consumers to pay for service they don’t use.

Several companies named in the lawsuit have defended their billing practices as legal and fully disclosed to customers.