New York (CNN/Money) - In most respects, cellular phones have changed our lives for the better.

Still, it's no secret that many cell users are not happy with their service, and dropped calls and spotty coverage are the least of their concerns. In fact, most of the complaints filed with the Federal Communications Commission for wireless service are related to billing and rates, according to FCC spokeswoman Rosemary Kimball.

Studying the hard-to-read fine print before you lock into a one-year contract is necessary if you want to avoid paying $59.99 for a $29.99 plan. Knowing just how hard it is to decipher anything with your eyes crossed, we'd like to reveal what celebrity hucksters Jamie Lee Curtis and Catherine Zeta-Jones won't.

If you choose your plan wisely, and use all of your minutes at all the right times, you could pay less than a penny a minute to make long-distance calls from your cell phone.

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"Carriers are having to give out a ridiculous number of minutes just to get anyone to pay attention," said Patrick McGugan, vice president of operations for Telebright, a site for comparing and buying phone plans. "I just saw a package with 5,200 minutes for $29.99."

Problem is, most of these minutes are limited to a narrow window of off-peak times. That 5,200 minute deal, for example, comprises 200 anytime and 5,000 night and weekend minutes.

It's a bargain if you make (and receive) most of your calls before 6:00 a.m. and after 9:00 p.m., the typical off-peak window. But to use all 5,000 of those minutes you'd need to spend almost three hours a day on the phone, and stay up well past your bedtime most nights.

"Carriers advertise this huge off-peak buckets but aren't being up front that they're good for about 30 minutes of useful calls each day," said Chris Murray, legislative council for Consumers Union.

If you do use up all of your "anytime" minutes and call during peak times, you'll pay what's known as an "overage" rate of about 30 to 45 cents a minute. "It doesn't take a lot of these calls to add $10 or $15 to your bill," McGugan said.

To avoid paying more cost of your monthly plan, be realistic about when, where and how much you'll use your cell phone. Remember you're not just paying for the calls you make but also the ones you receive.

"It's better to overbuy to start out with, and if you find you're consistently not using all of your minutes you can always back down," McGugan said.

Charging 30 to 45 cents a minute for calls that exceed the monthly bucket is one way carriers take back what they give away in cheap long-distance. As airlines, banks and credit card companies have discovered, fees are another way to lower prices and still turn a profit.

Some fees are optional, whether it's a few dollars a month to add voicemail to a bare-bones package, $5 a month to insure your handset, or $5 to $15 to tag on e-mail or messaging capabilities.

Increasingly, however, carriers are adding so-called "regulatory fees" to customers' bills, and these are not optional.

Cingular Wireless charges $1.25 a month for a "regulatory cost recovery fee." AT&T charges $1.20 a month for a "911 surcharge." Sprint charges $1.75 for 911 enhancement and portability. Nextel, meanwhile, charges a "federal programs cost recovery fee of $1.55 good for one or more the following: E911, number pooling and wireless number portability."

Carriers argue that such fees are necessary to recover the cost of new services they soon will be required to provide. One such service is "E911" to allow 911 operators to pinpoint the origin of a call.

Number portability, which will let customers keep their number when they switch carriers, is another service that doesn't exist -- and the carriers are fighting its mandatory implementation. Nevertheless, customers are paying for it. (The FCC says it will require such portability beginning in late November.)

While the government is indeed mandating certain services, it does not regulate how much carriers can charge to "recover" related costs.

"Every time carriers add on these charges there is a danger they're padding it," consumer activist Murray said.

The fact that you can't take your phone number with you is a major reason many customers remain loyal but dissatisfied.

And if the hassle of changing your cell number isn't enough to keep you, the early termination fee may be. The average charge ranges from $150 to $200 and up, according to McGugan. "This is because carriers are laying out so much money up front to acquire a customer," he said. "If you cancel before the contract is up the carrier actually loses money."

The free or subsidized handsets that carriers use to lure customers represent much of that cost. But, say consumer advocates, handsets are a lot cheaper than they used to be, with the most popular handsets costing carriers quite a bit less than their cancellation fees.

That brings us to yet another barrier for changing services: a new phone. There are legitimate reasons for why the phone needs to match the carrier. Still, Murray and others are convinced that business interests -- not technology -- are the real reason most handsets aren't compatible with most services.

"I really think it's an additional switching cost they like to have in place," he said.