July 9, 2007: The United States is making it
illegal for a telephone company to keep billing someone in the military for a
long term cell phone contract, if the cell phone user has been sent overseas
for more than 90 days. This is part of a larger movement it enable troops to
get out of long-term financial commitments (rental leases, health club, and
other membership contracts) when they are sent overseas. Some states have
passed laws to deal with this, and there is a drive for federal legislation.
Meanwhile, legislators are getting more complaints from troops who have had
their cell phone contracts cancelled unexpectedly because the telephone
companies didn't like all the roaming charges piled up by those transferred for
a few months to another part of the United States.
All this simply reflects the changes in how
soldiers live. In the past, you didn't have cell phone contracts, with
expensive penalties for premature cancellation. Troops who did not live in a
barracks, were married, and had a wife (or husband) to look after the house
while they were away. But today, many single troops live off base, usually in
rentals. If they don't have a roommate, they are stuck with the lease, even
though they are living in a combat zone in Iraq for the next three to fifteen
months. Cell phone and health club contracts were not designed with such
deployments in mind.
The landlords, telephone companies and health clubs
are taking different degrees of damage from all this. The landlords are taking
the biggest hit, since it can take them weeks, or longer, to get a new tenant.
Meanwhile, they lose rent. It's actually worse than that in areas around
military bases. There, many new apartments have been built to accommodate the
more affluent troops, who, increasingly, are allowed to live off base, rather
than in the barracks. The military is trying to fight this trend, by providing
private rooms for all troops (except in basic training) living on base. But
over 80 percent of the troops prefer to live off base, away from the 24/7
control the military has over on-base housing. Most unmarried junior enlisted
personnel are still required to live in the barracks, but that is slowly
changing.
Landlords, and other businesses, take a major
financial hit when a lot of troops from a local base are sent overseas. But the
"break a lease when you get shipped off to a combat zone" laws are inevitable,
and landlords (as well as telephone companies, health clubs and so on) are
going to have to work that into their business model.
