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Phone Companies Bill Public for Nonexistent Equipment
Srinivasan Ramakrishnan writes "Forbes has an eye-opening article on the scam that lets the Bells scoop $5 billion every year from the consumer with the sanction of the FCC. The FCC Line charge that appears on every phone bill is a vestige of a deal that was struck by the FCC with the Bells. The deal was touted by the FCC as a historic win that saved $3.2 Billion a year for the consumer - Forbes takes a closer look at the deal."
Or, something. I mean seriously, when was the last time you heard about one of these companies actually offering anything beneficial to anyone? They seem to only exist as local monopolies and to rip off the consumer and limit choice every time they get.
If you ask me, any kind of 'infrastructure' system should be run by the government, like the highway system, and companies should only be allowed access to things they can't have exclusive control over.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...is that the wireless companies have been fighting number portability for years (it's still not required: after being passed into law 1996, the FCC has postponed implementation every year) and yet they claim them as part of their fees: Nextel, AT&T, etc
Suicide Booth: You are now dead! Thank you for using Stop and Drop, America's favorite since 2008.
Sounds vaguely like what I suspect will happen here in Minnesota with other stuff. Right now, we have a pretty large ($4 billion) deficit, and a lot of programs are getting cut. Roads are a problem here because of the huge amounts of population growth we've had in the last 20 years... Right now, our state legislature is talking about allowing private companies to add additional lanes to existing roads and then charge money to use those lanes so that they can recoup the cost of building them, plus make a "reasonable profit", after which time, the cost of using those lanes would be reduced. I heard about this on the news last night, and the first thing I thought of was the telecomms and all the extra bullshit they tack onto our bills.
You and I both know that the cost of using those lanes would NEVER go down. They'll always find a way to charge more for what they've built, simply because people become so adjusted to things (like telephones) that they become a "necessity" instead of a "luxury" and people pay them blindly for the service. Look at cable TV -- how many of the channels you get in your huge bundle do you actually watch?
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The problem, fundamentally, is the local loop monopoly.
I'm no advocate of government regulation, but in economic terms, there is only one workable solution to prevent this sort of abuse. If the FCC and state regulators would get out of the way and let communities implement this, the cost and quality of phone service would improve to accurately reflect a competitive market value.
1. The community should purchase the network: all the last mile copper and rights of way should be owned by the commons and not monopolized by any private entity.
2. Any company (including the Baby Bells) can bid to rent the use of the network for the provision of any service (dialtone, DSL, etc.) to any customer. These rents should be for a term that allows for regular adjustment as the market changes.
With this approach, the Baby Bells would be in a good position to maintain a dominant market position in the near term, but not a monopoly which they can abuse. And if other firms can enter the market and do a better job of providing value to consumers and businesses, they will take market share away from the Bells.
Peace and love, y'all
You know, you're still paying for the use of the infrastructure if you have a cellphone. The Baby Bells are still getting your money. You are paying the phone monopoly.
The government essentially established regulations for phone companies to use in determining thier prices. Phone companies abuse the system (to get more money), and people scream about how evil the phone companies are.
The government establishes regulations on how much money welfare recipients should get. The recipients abuse the system (we've all seen stories about this at some point, somewhere)....and people scream about "the system".
A modern day witchhunt.
It is easier to get competitive wireless service than it is land-line service in most areas.
Many people who are canceling their land-lines are doing so because they already have wireless devices that basically de-value their land-line.
While canceling land-lines might not make any of the bells suddenly "see the light", it will shift more of their income to their wireless markets, which have competition, which *might* just force them to offer competitive services/prices.
Even if canceling land-lines doesn't fix anything, there is no point in paying $40/month for a useless service.
-This sig intentionally left blank
This is just a three step process, there are no question marks.
The four step one is the Microsoft DoJ changes
1) Monopoly found guilty by Goverment
2) Monopoly has word with new candidate
3) ???
4) Goverment lets Monopoly off.
With the Bells the worst thing is that everyone KNOWS how they are getting the money, but its not exactly something we can all reproduce.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Get a replay .. has an ethernet port in the back and has had all the features that the "series 2" Tivos just came out with.
:)
and they're not exaclty out of business yet
Cingular is owned by Bellsouth
Suncom by AT & T
Verizon was Bell Atlantic and others
Sprint owns Sprint (and the former 360)
There are lots of LARGE independent cell companies. You named one. Nextel
The others are: TMobile and PowerTel with 3.8 million and 1.4 million respectively plus TMoblie has the sexy Catherine Zeta to whore for them. Man, I wish she'd "rouge her knees" for me ;)
There are others I can't think of. You are partially right. But, the cell phone companies (even if they are the same companies) are in a new era growth of competition, the phobne comapnies and the branches that formed were on a dead tree to begin with.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I see stories like this every day. Is anyone here shocked anymore? I mean seriously, Look what's going on here. We're cattle. We're being exploited and the farmer's are squeezing harder every day.
You think we're getting screwed by the powers that be, check out your brothers in the third-world. How would you like to be diseased, uneducated and starving and every time you try to get your shit together the CIA and US Army come over and kick your ass back into the stone age?
If you're like me you're one of the top-slaves. You're a well-educated milk-cow and generate prime product for your masters. You've probably grown accustomed to the 9 inches of abrasive corporate schlong in your ass and your discomfort is only occasional. Working all week, giving a third or more of what you make to the government and suffering so many rules that you've lost count is tolerable.
I call it ugly as hell!
The present system is a consortium of tumors victimizing the less-consolidated cells. If us peace-loving citizen cells could get organized the tumors wouldn't stand a chance.
I think that the best way to go about it would be simply to seceed from the system en-masse. Organize via email, name a day and, on that chosen day, everyone involved would stop engaging in commerce with the tumors. Switch to an alternate system. It'd be a bloodless revolution.
The new system? I'd choose something non-centralized and simple: An officialless direct-democracy (everyone votes on everything) with proxy-voting. Or something like that.
focus schmocus
The price of a stamp is the average of the costs to deliver all the mail (and support the deliverers). The government isn't paying anymore, but people sending letters within Chatanooga are paying for the letter from Florida to Alaska (or the routing graph analog).
But do we want everyone to pay their own costs if the average is reasonable? The cost of a business sending a letter is several times the cost of the stamp (letterhead, envelope, writer, mail room). I benefited from Rural Electrification and its cousins (telephone, highway, etc.) and so did you. There's less disease, the National Guard is called out less, less crowding in the cities. Averaging out infrastructure expense means more of the country can be used; there are less problems with "backwardness".
If you don't believe it, look at a country that doesn't have a big infrastructure. Or just look at the U.S. in 1860.
sed 's/commun/terror/g' mccarthy > bush; sed 's/terror/saddam/g' bush > bush_wacked
I've had my cell phone since 1997. During that time I've had Zero solicitations and of course I dont get screwed by the local Bell. The only people who call me who arent my friends are my creditors saying that I missed a payment. I pay it and im done. Since not having a land-based phone I've enjoyed privacy freedom and no hassle billing. Its in my pocket and im not tied to 1 place to receive calls. Now if they can pass that bill so we can keep our phone #s and go to competing subscribers....
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
Now, if i, in theory can have 390 phones for $27/month how much is it really worth having one?
FRA: STFU GTFO
more than a hundred years after it was passed to pay for the cost of the America/Spain war.
Way back in and around 1896, way less than 1% of the people could have phones so the tax was on the rich. Funny how this tax on the rich now applies to everyone.
Taxes never die. Don't let anyone create any new ones.
7 addresses in 3 years and they don't send you your bills on time? Now that's a head scratcher.
My problem with ATT wireless was that when the tower was down (we have one tower in this town), there was nothing they would do, nor would they compensate us for loss of service, so we switched to Verizon.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
When they were auditing for Y2K bugs, all the phone companies ran massive audits and found stuff they hadn't known about for years.. and the mergers were tremendously complicating things as well. There was stuff in the network well over 40 years old. But the price on the equipment they use certainly suggests _why_ they leave equipment from the 60s in place.
But they should have fairly decent records for now from that audit process.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
It was 1898, not 1896. It was also repealed in 1902, then reinstated in 1914, and repealed and reinstated several more times. Not quite as old as you think, nor the tax you think.
Google is my friend. Google should be your friend too.
Taxes never die.
This one did, several times. The first resurrection took 12 years.
Infuriate left and right