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DSL Surcharge Plan Abandoned by Major Carriers
thedletterman writes to mention a USAToday article about the proposed surcharges on DSL lines. The FCC stepped in just as major carriers Verizon and BellSouth made moves to add a $1-$3 surcharge to their DSL services; they were coincidentally to add this charge just as the Universal Service Fund fee was being removed from all DSL services. From the article: "Verizon, in a statement, said it was dropping the new fee as a result of feedback from consumers: 'We have listened to our customers, and are eliminating the charge.' Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union had another explanation: 'They got caught red-handed in a blatant consumer rip-off. Only under the pressure of regulators cracking down on them did they back off from this unwarranted charge.' The FCC last week sent Verizon a 'letter of inquiry,' the first step in a formal investigation."
Traditionally, i'm against government stepping in. I'm a firm believer that the market should (and will) regulate itself, only requiring laws breaking monopolies on limited necessities. But with consumer's getting more stupidly passive, and companies more ingeniously aggressive, i'm left without a force to join, and the companies, who as a result of frequent changeover and short-termed decisions, never think of the customers as more than a quick way to make money, we need a government body stepping in.
We are no longer practising Capitalism. This is more of a MoneyGrabism.
Have you read my journal today?
This is the website from Kimmelman's team, has a bunch of info on the press release and the fees.
What made this so amusing was how they denied afterwards that the new surcharge had anything to do with the FCC ending their fee. If they wanted to pretend that, would it not have made more sense to announce them in seperate emails at least?
Finkployd
I'm dropping Verizon land line service in favor of VOIP in a week or so. I got an expensive collect call charged to my bill last month, a call I never accepted, and the date/time stamp showed it supposed ocurred when I was at work (and I live alone). Verizon's response was "Oh, we just poass those charges from the original collect call company." Contacting the other company produced nothing, and a quick online investigation shows that they are the source of many phone line scams.
Fuck you, Verizon. By passing on the charges and doing NOTHING for your customers, you are an enabler, and just as guilty as the other company. Fuck you, fuck the cocksucking MBAs who made you what you are, and kiss my lilly white ass.
Precisely why I'm about to switch to prepaid. I'll probably go with Virgin Mobile who offers all kinds of extras for a lower price.
This is one of the things I like about Road Runner.
I was quoted $44.95/month.
My bill is $44.95/month.
See the connection? No fees, no taxes, no charges besides the $44.95/month. The service is pretty good, too.
Now, before someone suggests that I look at my cable bill for the hidden fees, or asks about what I pay for my cable service, I think I should point out that I do not subscribe to cable (I get my TV fix through Dish Network). It is not well known, but you can unbundle Road Runner from TW Cable TV, and I have done so. When you do so, you will pay exactly $44.95/month for the middle-tier Road Runner residential service, and not a cent more.
www.wavefront-av.com
I'm not a Comcast customer, so I can't speak on them.
I was, however, a Cablevision internet ("Optimum Online") and Verizon DSL customer at the same time for about a month, back when Verizon was still running the "Cable is shared and teh slowz!" advertisements (that the FTC later made them stop running). I learned first hand (and demonstrated to anyone I could get over to my apartment) how much faster cable was than DSL -- with out the hassel of putting filters on all the other phone lines, or of PPPoE.
When I finally called to cancle the service, they tried to keep me on by offering everything from faster service (I didn't even realize that faster DSL was an option) to one year of reduced fees. When I finally said "Look, I have cable, and it is faster with large data and has a lot less lag", the VZ rep put the cancelation through with any further protest. Even Verizon's own employees know that they can't compete with cable internet on a serice basis.
I'm tired of companies that offer a contract with a set price only to change the price arbitrarily with "surcharges." The odds are completely in the companies favor. They have a customer locked into a mult-year contract with a certain minimum price but the company can raise prices on a whim with "surcharges." If they can do that why can't I add in my own "surcredits?"
I recently dropped my garbage collection company because of surcharges. I've really respect companies that charge me ONE price per month with no lengthy contract (Time Warner is the ONLY example I can think of). I really don't care what factors into some companies cost of doing business. I don't care how much gas costs Waste Management and I don't want to see it on my bill.
There\'s no place like ~
An extremely simple regulatory fix is really all that's necessary -- require the advertised or quoted price for any good or service to be inclusive of any and all fees, regardless of origin, including the maximum possible sales tax payable in the region advertised.
Advertised prices would then actually represent what you'd pay (or even less, if for some reason your area had a lower sales tax than the maximum), and businesses wouldn't be able to raise prices without raising prices.
They jacked up the "Regulatory Compliance Fee" (i.e. we want you to think this is a tax, but is just gravy for us fee) from $2.24 to $4.16.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Believe you me, they WILL continue to get the income from it one way or another. As a DSL provider myself, our circuit costs mysteriously went up 1 month before the FUSF fee was eliminated. FUSF has ALWAYS been nothing more than a slush fund for the telcos anyway. Which in and of itself is why they wanted to replace it with a service fee.
Because people keep using the telcos for things like this (money speaks louder than words with corperations) very few independant ISPs have the power to do anything about it. Look at it, Earthlink couldn't stop it, Covad couldn't stop it, and I know I sure couldn't have stopped it. If people quit using telcos for their DSL and went to the independant ISP we could actually fight stuff like this on capitol hill.
There's no sense in rehashing all this yet again so....'nough said
I'm working on bringing utilities to a new construction building in Maryland (around DC). While they do not have fiber (Fios) at the location right now, I was told by the Fiber Service Group for Verizon that if you request fiber to be installed they will do so at no additional cost (typical $80 dollar install fees, of course). They will also supply the converters to translate the digital signal to analog, essentially replacing whatever trunk line they would have put in (in my case, two 25-pair cables backbone cables). When they finally get Fiber into your particular area, you are already set up and ready for it.
Of course, that's only helpful if you're building a new house/building.
I can't find the exact post, but someone here previously suggested sending a bill for your "Check Writing Fee" or something similar along with the payment you make.
No one will likely notice or care, but after 90 days, send a quick letter to their accounts payable department letting them know it will be going to collections if it's not paid. Chances are good you'll get a check for whatever amount you're looking for, provided it's not overly large.
Might I suggest a bill for your "Consumer Resources Recovery Fee"
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
Not exactly the same, but my auto insurance company charges me $3.50 every time I make a payment. So if I just pay the monthly bill, I end up paying an extra $21 during a six month insurance period. Talk about sleezy.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
I'm loving the fact that my city council (in Utah) voted in the affirmative to support the Utopia network here. I use the service at work, and am awaiting the install to my residence right now. Many other cities were lobbied successfully by Comcast and Qwest to vote the initiative down, and are now wishing they had not fallen for the lies!
..."
Over the Utopia network, residential customers can get a 15meg SYNCHRONOUS line with static IP for $40/month. Business customers can get a 30meg synchronous line for about $125 (depending on bundling with VoIP and promotions). There are currently four ISPs offering internet service on the Utopia network, so you also get to take your pick. It's a WONDERFUL system to have in the area, even though they're not finished deploying some segments of the involved cities, and still working some of the kinks out. I hope other cities in the nation are successful in emulating it, and that they will likewise not be bought or talked out of it by the incumbent providers.
As a sidenote, the presence of fiber-to-the-home in my area has helped keep comcast and qwest in check. I can get Comcast's highest-speed cable modem in my area for about $20/month as long as I happen to mention that "i'm considering this new fiber-optic thingy I heard about in my neighborhood
Or have a group study it for us, publish their findings, and having the people make informed choices.
This approach sometimes works OK when a well-known magazine helps you decide which $50 DVD player is the best value. But it breaks down quickly when things get more complicated.
First, industry associations often will publish their own materials, and a consumer seeking to educate him/herself may not have any way to tell the difference between a truly independent review and industry publicity. Second, any review or comparison that is exacting enough to capture all the important details in complicated transactions or on complicated products is going to lose the comprehension of readers who just don't want to spend time and effort on the subject. "Informed choices" these days require a truly staggering amount of knowledge. Don't believe me? Let your uncle Bob buy a PC on his own, even after he does an amount of research that seems appropriate to him at a level he understands, and see what he brings home. Now realize how often you are doing exactly the same thing in other areas. Scary.
In such complex environments, abuses become easier to hide. The purpose of consumer regulation is not to enforce that everyone get the best value all of the time -- we don't need to regulate against your uncle Bob bringing home a $1000 Pentium 4 box with integrated video -- but to prevent egregious abuses and anticompetitive behavior by companies with huge, impossible-to-change market-power and information advantages.
I don't really understand how fighting to have verifiably independent professionals on our side, which might actually protect us, is "stupidly passive" where beating our head against incomprehensible small print without any help or possibility of getting a different outcome is not. I can only conclude that you, like many, many others in the US, are fetishizing anything done by a single individual while rejecting collective action out of hand, regardless of the actual effectiveness of either course of action in any particular situation.