Count on it each election season: Our elected representatives finally get off their duffs and start working on things that will actually affect our pocketbooks.

Early this week, Sen. Herb Kohl, who chairs the Antitrust Subcommittee in the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the big four cell phone providers to demand they account for their outlandish recent price increases on text messages. Since 2005, the price of a text message has doubled to an industry standard of 20¢, and perhaps not so coincidentally, it has done so with all four phone providers: T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.

Kohl, a Democrat from Wisconsin, demanded that the cell phone companies show him paperwork about their price structures, including evidence of what made them decide to raise rates in such a dramatic way. The rate hikes, Kohl says, were "hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace," and he intends to look into them.

Scrolling through Forbes' new slideshow of America's Fastest Dying Industries can easily get the mind wandering on a Big Lebowski tangent. Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But, the fact that our nation may suffer a dearth of bowling alleys and beer seems a little disconcerting.

As part of this new feature, in conjunction with AOL Small Business, Forbes lists 10 U.S. industries that will most likely see a drop in output, revenue and employment in the next four years.

According to Forbes, the industries that had the foresight to adjust to change and diversify are doing the best. "While technology is changing the face of many industries," writes the magazine's Joshua Zumbrun and Brian Wingfield, "the firms within them are often doing quite well." AT&T and Verizon, for instance, are not worried about their outdated "land lines" since their wireless subscriber numbers are surging.

After the cell phone plan I share with my sister and parents went over in both minutes and text messages for the second month in a row, I decided to look into the new plans our carrier has come out with in order to save on overages. After I started looking, I found that I could pay the same base price as I am now, but get unlimited text messaging to any carrier instead of the limited version the family had been on.

Cell phone carriers are constantly revising plans and changing prices in order to stay competitive. The only way for current customers to reap the benefits of these changes is to call and ask for the new price. If you are investigating new plans make sure you read the fine print and check over all of the changes. In our case the new plan charges for the data used to download ringtones, but this additional cost is far outweighed by the savings. You should also check with your carrier to make sure these changes won't extend your contract out past retirement.

If changing your whole plan isn't an option or won't save you any money, then check out the additional features on your account. If you haven't changed your text messaging or data plan since you first signed up, reevaluating the options available from your carrier could save you even more cash. My carrier, Verizon, has changed text messaging plans every few months for the past year. Verizon also dropped the price of their data package for many smart phones by $15, savings you won't get without taking action.

At first, I thought, "They're crazy."

Then I thought, "Yeah, crazy like a mongoose."

(I get tired of clichés.)

Sony Pictures Television just announced yesterday that it's going to be the first Hollywood studio to offer full-length movies by cell phone, the Associated Press is reporting. It won't be movies on demand; they'll play in a loop, interspersed with commercials.

Starting in May, Sony will offer a slew of popular films like Ghostbusters, Karate Kid and Roxanne--you know, starring Steve Martin. Boy, that's a great one. I always crack up when Martin's in the bar, and he does all of those nose jokes at once, and...

The next time you find yourself talking on your cell while inching through a traffic jam, ignore the finger from the driver behind you, because you might be helping traffic planners solve the congestion problem. AirSage Inc. has come up with a clever way to identify highway traffic holdups by measuring cell phone volume; more cell traffic, more car traffic. More car traffic, more congestion.

By tracking (anonymously) the amount of cell phone traffic on the Sprint network on highways in 46 U.S. cities it claims it can estimate with great accuracy the amount of congestion. It then provides this info to state departments of transportation for alternate route planning and emergency services, and to private companies for fleet management. Also among Airsage's clients are TV and radio stations.

The logical next step for AirSage is to offer drivers a service that returns this information to their cell phones, so that they can seek out a faster route to work. Perhaps such a service could help Sprint staunch the lost-subscriber bleeding.

Cell phone yakking while driving- it's not just part of the problem, it's part of the solution.

Gracias to BusinessWeek

Maybe you're a thrifty sort. Maybe you disdain the culture's love of all that is new and shiny. Or maybe you're just an early adapter (Like Gordon Gekko here on the right) who for some reason never upgraded. In other words, maybe you're one of the few Americans who still uses an analog cellphone.

Well start saving for your Blackberry now, my friends. Your days are numbered. As of February 2008, carriers will no longer be required to support old analog technology, and many will drop it altogether. Although carriers estimate that less than 1% of cell phone users actually still have an analog device, that's still upwards of a million people.

Carriers that still support analog are Verizon Wireless, Alltel and AT&T.