User Fees

If you're like most cellphone users, you probably think you're paying less than 10 cents per minute for calls. Think again. When you do the math, you find the average cellphone customer actually pays more than $3 per minute, according to a report being issued this week by the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego consumer advocacy group. I got a sneak peek at the report the other day. Researchers arrived at the average $3.

Netflix flexed its muscle Monday, saying it would raise prices about 20% for subscribers who rent Blu-ray movie discs. The movie service said the higher rates would allow it to stock more copies of the high-definition discs to keep pace with demand. The rate change, which takes effect April 27, will add $4 to the $17 monthly fee paid by subscribers who rent three movies at a time. Customers who rent standard DVDs will not be affected.

The Web is a great place to freeload. But that could be changing. In the latest example of fees being introduced for a service that once came with no strings attached, Eastman Kodak Co. says it'll begin charging $4.99 to $19.99 annually for its previously free online photo-storage service, Kodak Gallery. If you don't pay by May 16, the company warns, all your photos could be deleted.

Despite vowing not to raise their prices, the nation's only two satellite radio providers found their proposed merger to be a tough sell Wednesday on Capitol Hill. "You've got some high hurdles to overcome, don't you think?" House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) told Mel Karmazin, chief executive of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. Karmazin, who would run the new company if federal regulators approve Sirius' proposed merger with XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.

The state Department of Health Services has scaled back a fee increase for medical marijuana identification cards after an outcry. The annual ID card fee, which was to rise from the current $13 to $142 on Thursday, will instead jump to $66 starting April 1. Medi-Cal patients will pay $33. Though the state has issued about 10,000 ID cards, more than half the counties -- including Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange -- have not joined in.

A luxury rehabilitation center in Newport Beach has sued rocker Courtney Love for more than $180,000 for treatment she received after overdosing at a Hollywood nightclub in the summer of 2005. Love, whose three-month live-in program at Beau Monde International began in August 2005, paid the center $10,000 after entering treatment, but has repeatedly refused to pay the rest, said the lawsuit, filed this month in Orange County Superior Court.

Bus and commuter train fares would go up significantly under hikes proposed Thursday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. To deal with a projected $1-billion budget deficit, transit officials are proposing a fare increase effective July 1, and a second increase Jan. 1, 2009. The regular cash fare for bus and rail lines would remain $1.25 until 2009, when it would increase to $2. Day passes would increase from $3 to $5 in July, and to $8 by 2009.

A legal fight involving two Southern California companies and AT&T Inc. is exposing an ominous reality: Phone companies say they can decide whom their customers can't call. The Kidney Cancer Assn., a small charity watching its nickels and dimes, found that out the hard way. The nonprofit had been using a free, Web-based conference-calling service from a Long Beach company to connect patients with medical experts.

Along with death and taxes, commuters on the 91 Freeway may never be able to escape rush-hour congestion and rising tolls. Starting today, it will cost drivers as much as $9.50 to use the Express Lanes to get from Orange County to Riverside County -- or nearly a buck a mile. The new top fare, up a quarter from the last rate increase in January, places the 10-mile toll road among the most expensive in the country. It has doubled since 2002. Denver-area motorists pay $9.

Given the task of closing a gaping budget shortfall for the coming school year, Los Angeles schools Supt. David Brewer has angered leaders of after-school youth groups with his proposal that the groups pay to use school district athletic fields and other facilities. Brewer included the so-called pay to play proposal among many cost-saving measures aimed at closing a $95-million shortfall in the $6.