After the viral campaign started on the Web against AT&T’s literally huge iPhone bills the company decided to take a more environmental-friendly approach.

And we don’t mean huge as in huge amounts of money to pay. No, this is about record-setting 300-pages phone bills, wrapped up in a box and sent to customers for about $10. Besides cutting down a lot of trees for the all those “little novels”, it’s also the cost of printing, packing and shipping that is certainly draining a lot of money from AT&T’s pockets. And customers ask: what for?

There was even an estimation of the ecological disaster that Steve Jobs’ envisioned “10 million iPhones by the end of 2008” would produce if AT&T were to continue with the enormous bills.

According to a blogger named Muhammad Saleem, a regular 100 page iPhone bill would require the logging of about 74,535 trees annually…

On August 22, AT&T took in consideration customers’ and environmentalists’ uprising anger and sent a mea culpa text message to all of its iPhone subscribers, in which the company said that the exaggeratedly-detailed bills are history:

"We are simplifying your paper bill, removing itemized detail. To view all detail go to att.com/mywireless. Still need full paper bill? Call 611."

This was further confirmed by AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel yesterday: "From now on iPhone customers will get the summary bill, which has very little detail."

Starting September 28, new wireless customers, including new iPhone users, will be sent summary bills by default, rather than the detailed accounts. "If customers want the detailed bill, they will be charged $1.99 a month per line," added Siegel. AT&T did not charge its iPhone customers for the initial bills.

The $1.99 fee will also be applied to existing customers if they decide to operate modifications to their account, such as adding a new line.

Siegel declined to admit that the Web-scandal it had sparked with the awkwardly-large phone bills is the reason behind the company’s switch to a more “electronically-oriented” approach:

"We've been talking about this for months. With as many customers as AT&T has, you discuss things thoughtfully before you make a change."

However he did admit that the customers’ soundly protests (which have materialized in the form of videos posted on YouTube or other sites) weighed hard enough to speed up the process of electronic billing:

"They've seen their first bills and expressed their opinions, which is a good thing," Siegel was quoted saying. "We don't want people to be overburdened with voluminous bills."

Last week, an anonymous AT&T customer care employee responded to Saleem’s posting saying that “We are told to encourage customers to use ATT.com to view their detailed bill online rather than looking at all the specifics on their physical bill.

We’re also told to encourage paperless billing altogether; an option offered to customers when they sign up their phone number online. All of this is offered free on their website and is available to them 24 hours a day. There are a few exceptions where they wouldn’t be able to view their latest bill for a while, but I am still new there, so I don’t know all the specific factors that will cause this.”