Phone Companies Are Lying to Keep Control

Someone needs to reveal the true motivation behind the telephone companies’ lobbying for this bill [“House Votes to Ban Possession of Phone-Cloning Equipment,” Feb. 27].

They really want to be able to control the end-user because, truth be told, programming a cellular phone is no harder than programming your VCR, and telephone companies are frantically trying to hide the little man behind the cellular “curtain.”

This bill is actually intended to prevent end-users who would like to have several phones on a single account--i.e., the same telephone number--from programming additional phones with that same phone number.

Wouldn’t that be convenient? The phone company insists it can’t be done. They’re lying to protect the service charge for separate accounts now required for each phone activation.

Would you accept that the phone company is entitled to a separate service charge for each extension phone in your house? This is exactly the same issue, albeit a wireless version.

Outlawing hardware will not stop fraud. It’s simply not our government’s place to decide which circuit boards and which electronic doodads are safe for public consumption.

J. MARVIN CAMPBELL

Palms