The president of the Federal Communications Commission announced Friday that the commission is seeking ways to regulate the fees mobile phone subscribers pay when quitting their contracts early.

The move could be a good sign for the telecom companies, which have seen an increase in the number of lawsuits over their early termination fees over the last period of time. The biggest players on the market have even come up with a proposal for the new law.

According to people familiar with the matter, quoted by the Associated Press, the proposal states that subscribers will be able to cancel their contracts for free during a period of 30 days after signing the contract or 10 days after receiving the first bill. After this period expires, they will have to pay $5 less for every month they remain in the network.

At this moment, wireless companies charge subscribers who want to terminate their contract early a fee starting at $175. While people consider these fees unnecessary and see them as a way of preventing subscribes to change their service providers, wireless companies say that the money are used to cover some of the cost of the cell phones that are sold cheaper to subscribers, as well as the costs of signing up new customers in the network.

If the Federal Communications Commission will decide to regulate the cancellation fees there will be a national standard that will make things clearer for everybody. Currently each state offers its own regulations. On the other hand, consumers will have to address their complaints directly to the FCC, which has scored poorly on how it handles them.