Ever opened your cell phone bill and nearly had a heart attack from the amount? We all have at one point or another. This may change though, if a plan pioneered by the Israeli carrier Orange is a success.

Customers with 3G enabled phones will soon be given an alternative to writing a monthly check: by watching a few commercials. The plan would give customers a discount based on how many advertisements they're willing to watch, all the way down to complete bill annihilation. Unlike traditional ad spots, these are designed to be interactive, including the ability to send a text message to the marketing firm that made the commercial. The details aren't complete, and the plan is only pilot at the moment, but rest assured this won’t be the last time we'll hear about it.

This is a very dangerous territory to get into, and needs to be watched carefully. On the good side, the ads are opt-in. For this service to work at all in any form, that has to remain the case. Opting-in is a great option for folks with limited or no incomes (read: teenagers), as they can have phone service at only the cost of a minute or two of their day. But this also brings up the dark side: if it works too well, some carriers may decide that commercials are a part of their service. No choice, you have to watch a commercial before you place a call to Aunt Ethel.

There is that danger, the further over saturation of people with ads. Now is the time to do this right: keep the service opt-in, and let those of us willing to pay for the service ad-free.