The other day, I wanted to change the share minutes plan my wife and I have on AT&T. We use WAY less than the 1,400 minutes we had on our old plan, so I wanted to change to 550 minutes per month. I'd recently added the feature which gives us unlimited texting and free calling to any cell phone on any network, figuring that we almost always call people on their cell phones. With that feature, we should easily stay within the 550 minute limit.

When I called AT&T to change plans, I was informed that the 550 minute plan was not compatible with the unlimited text and mobile calling feature. I could only go down to the 700 minute plan if I wanted to keep that feature. The 700 minute plan would also require me to give up the friends & family feature which allowed us to choose 10 numbers to call for free.

Seriously AT&T? In order to have a plan with fewer minutes, I have to give up a la carte features which allow me to use fewer minutes? Verizon, don't think you're innocent here too. I spent many years with you and I know you have the same stupid combination of plans and "features". I'm pretty sure Sprint and T-Mobile pull the same shenanigans.

Look guys, you're not airlines. Learn from them. Everyone hates the stupid a la carte fees. Bags, better seats and priority boarding all cost extra and passengers feel nickel and dimed when their "cheap" ticket wind up hitting them with another 50% in fees. So why do you feel the need to do the same to your customers? Your low-minute plans look good until customers realize that they need a higher priced plan in order to get features which would help them save minutes.

Stop with the confusing plans and features already! Let me tell you something you should have figured out when smartphones really took off: you're not telephony providers anymore. You're mobile broadband providers. Not many people choose a carrier based on the number of minutes or text messages they can get. These things aren't differentiating features. The devices you offer and the broadband network you provide are what set you apart, so quit screwing around with complicated pricing for telephony services. Just give us unlimited calling and texting for a flat fee and be done with it.

Are you going to whine about how much mobile broadband and especially the 4G upgrades cost? Start saying that you need the higher margins of telephony services to fund 4G rollouts? Fine, charge more for broadband. That's what you're really selling, so charge people for that. But please, quit annoying your customers with ridiculous pricing rules for minutes and texts.