A few weeks ago, you might recall that Verizon decided they were going to raise their early termination fees for smartphone users from $175 to $350. You might also recall how this annoyed Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who wrote to both the FCC and Verizon to complain that the ETF hike was "anti-consumer and anti-competitive." As had been rumored, Klobuchar yesterday unveiled a bill taking aim at early termination fees. According to a Klobuchar press release, the bill would impose limits on how high such fees could be, while requiring betters communication between carriers and customers. The bill would:

•Prevent wireless carriers from charging an ETF that is higher than the discount on the cell phone that the wireless company offers consumers for entering into a multi-year contract. For example, if a wireless consumer enters into a 2-year contract and receives a $150 discount with the contract, the ETF cannot exceed $150.

•Require wireless carriers to pro-rate their ETFs for consumers who leave their contracts early so that the ETF for a two-year contract would be reduced by half after one year and pro-rated down to zero by the end of a contract term.

•Require wireless carriers to provide "clear and conspicuous disclosure" of the ETF at the time of purchase.

•Require monthly billing statements to clearly state the pro-rated fee customers would be charged if they terminate their contracts before the end of the next billing cycle.

You might (or hey, you might not) recall that this is Klobucher's second effort to impose new laws governing ETFs and other carrier practices. Klobuchar previously introduced the Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act, which aimed to reduce and pro-rate ETFs -- but carriers managed to stall that bill by voluntarily making several changes to their business models. That included pro-rating ETFs, and 30 day no-obligation trials (which some carriers have since backed off of). Simply the threat of a new bill seemed to do the trick last time -- so stay tuned.