A press release sent to journalists yesterday reveals that T-Mobile will reduce its ETF to $100 for customers with three to six months left on their contract, and will further reduce the fee to “$50 or their standard monthly charge, whichever is left” for contracts with less than three months remaining.

T-Mobile spokesman David Henderson said the policy change applies to “new or renewing” contracts beginning June 28.

Washington Post blogger Rob Pegoraro notes that T-Mobile is one of the last providers to revise their ETF policy, following AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which announced a similar policy change last November and two years ago, respectively. The remaining “lone holdout” is Sprint Nextel – but the company recently announced ETF reform plans of its own slated for “later this year.”

The move comes amidst a nationwide push for ETF reform, spearheaded by the FCC and driven by a rash of class-action lawsuits filed by customers angry with their service providers. These lawsuits allege that ETFs lock customers into less-than-desirable phone plans, and that the fees have little relation to a contract's value: customers pay the same amount of money, regardless of the price of their phone. Cellular providers say ETFs are necessary in order to subsidize the cheap handsets that have allowed the US cell phone industry to “flourish.”

Citing a wide, troublesome diversity in state-by-state cellular regulation, a coalition of providers asked the FCC to establish nationwide ETF regulation earlier this month. While it indicated that it is willing to intervene, the FCC’s attitude seems to remain cautious, and FCC chairman Kevin Martin asked for a number of changes – like ETFs based on the cost of equipment and prorated against “reasonable” contract lengths – beyond what providers have implemented.