The T-mobile Handset upgrade fee has been nothing short of confusing since the carrier began charging existing customers a fee to upgrade their phones in November 2007.  At first T-mobile claimed that the $18 fee would help underwrite the cost of selling subsidized handsets to new customers, but then additional confusion arose.  If an existing customer was upgrading their phone, but not extending their contract, the fee would not be assessed.  Today we can finally put an end to the upgrade fee nonsense as the carrier officially announced that the $18 upgrade fee is no mas.  Now if only other carriers (cough, At&t) would follow suit and we could have accurate pricing of our handsets without seeing an upgrade fee tacked onto our next month’s bill.