As Congress continues to look into early termination fees (ETFs) charged by cellular carriers for leaving a contract before its date of maturity, it would be interesting to explore imagine a world without such penalties.

Financially, carriers expect a customer to stick around for the entire length of their contract, most often providing the incentive to enter into such a contract by subsidizing the upfront cost of a handset. If a subscriber wishes to duck out early, an ETF is assessed for essentially breaking this contract. But what if Congress passed a bill that would outlaw the use of ETFs altogether? If that were to happen, I would expect a colossal change in the cellular industry, one that would bring a contract-free cellular environment.

How so? If carriers don’t have the legal capacity to charge ETFs that penalize the customer for breaking a contract, the need to enter into a contract for cellular service would cease to exist altogether. The end result would be a cellular environment that centers around contract-free, pre-paid cellular service without ETFs.

But don’t get your hopes up just yet, since the possibility of Congress completely outlawing ETFs is very low to say the least.