@arstechnica Years ago I wanted to change my cell phone. Provider told me they will not sell me the phone and I have to pay over 24 months. I said no, you are allowed to buy the phone outright. They disagreed and I told them I can go to their competitor. They told me I would get told the same thing. They didn't know I checked before going to them and I COULD buy the phone. End result, I went to their competitor, bought the phone, and went with their plan that ended up costing half of what I was paying. I have stayed with them so far as they are treating me as a valuable customer!

The companies want to make it easy for you to enter into a plan, but make it so damned difficult to allow you leave that you end up giving up and living with crap.

Hopefully this will go through and the cable (and telcos) companies will have to keep their customers happy as they can easily and quickly go to another company willing to serve them.