Cellular phone service in the US is a mixed bag. While US residents enjoy the widespread availability of 3G networks and gadget candy like the iPhone, there is also a confusing morass of fees, contracts, and phones tethered to their providers via locking. The new Cell Phone Empowerment Act of 2007 aims to change much of that.

Introduced late last week by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the consumer-friendly bill would force cellular providers to change some of their ways. First off, companies would be barred from charging any fees beyond those mandated by local, state, and federal governments. That means no more hidden fees, as overage charges would be listed separately.

Early termination fees would also be prorated, with customers looking to get out of their contracts only forced to pay half of the termination fee at the halfway point of the contract.

There is no doubt a 3G version of Apple's iPhone is in the wings and it could be announced soon, according to wireless chip and DSP sector analyst Will Strauss of Forward Concepts.

There is also speculation that Apple will announce the Wideband-CDMA 3G capable version of the phone when it finally reveals which operators it has chosen for the European launch of the handset.

Rogers Communications Inc., operator of the only wireless network in Canada that uses the same technology as Apple Inc.'s iPhone, said consumers may have a while to wait before the handset goes on sale there.

While Rogers would ``love'' to sell the device, Apple hasn't set a release date in Canada, Rogers Chief Operating Officer Nadir Mohamed said at a conference in Toronto today.

Apple founder Steve Wozniak is off-message with respect to the rationale for Apple's iPhone price cut:

Stephen Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, told The IBC Daily that he thinks Apple's decision to drop the price of the iPhone by up to 50% only two months after it went on the market was "an accidental error" and that he "hasn't talked to anyone who thinks it was a good idea."

Driving the mobile Web experience onto mid- and low-end cell phones, Opera Software is expected to announce this week that its Opera Mini Web browser has hit the 1 billion monthly page views milestone. Opera Mini is designed to automatically reformat conventional Web pages for display on any Java-enabled mobile device.

With its improved usability and rapid downloads, Opera Mini 4.0 (recently released in beta version) is being explicitly touted as a free alternative to the rich Internet capability of the costly iPhone from Apple.

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