Normally we have to wait until CES for the smartphone market to heat back up again, but it appears as if some yuletide legal wranglings could add a bit of drama to the holiday season.

Just as Verizon's legal department was getting over their hangovers from the victory in the AT&T Map battle, a new round of legal woes could be bearing down on the company: the FCC recently said that it would begin an investigation into the way the company treats its outgoing customers.

At the heart of the matter is Verizon's practice of charging early termination fees to customers who wish to cancel their service with the company while still under contract. Recently, Verizon has doubled the fee for smartphone customers from $175 to $350. The fee is meant to help the company recoup some of the costs of subsidizing a phone which the company would otherwise pick up over

Now, the FTC wants the company to come forward and explain why. The commission has set a Dec 18 deadline for Verizon to address the issue and explain why it has decided to double cost suddenly.

This is where Verizon's and Motorola's aggressive campaign against Apple and AT&T could come back to haunt them a bit. As anyone who has watched the ads can tell, the iPhone is the primary target, meaning that Verizon seeks to make a huge dent in the consumer smartphone space.

As such, opponents of the company could possibly make the case that doubling the fee is an effort to keep consumers locked in should they buy the droid and then decide that the handset was not worth the hype.

Could be an interesting holiday season in the smartphone world.

04 Dec 2009