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AT&T Is Screwing Customers By Almost Tripling a Bogus Fee (androidpolice.com)
AT&T has almost tripled the cost of the "Administrative Fee" featured in its wireless service bills. "Up until early this year, that 'fee' was typically assessed at $0.76 per postpaid line -- not nothing, but over the course of two years of service, it ends up being a little over $18," reports Android Police. From the report: Most recently, subscribers getting their statements for June are finding an Administrative Fee charge of $1.99 per line every month. That brings the two-year cost of this "administrative fee" to almost $50 for each line on your account. The fee was raised earlier this year incrementally in March (by $0.54), but this new hike comes just three months after the first one, and it's not even clear why.
AT&T is likely hoping subscribers just won't notice their per-line bill is going up $1.23 a month versus where it was a few months ago, and in the process, could net almost a billion dollars in additional revenue according to one analyst. This could allow AT&T to finance up to $10 billion in new debt to expand its ever-broadening media empire. The fee is being assessed against all postpaid subscribers, regardless of their service plan or any grandfathering. AT&T says the fee is related to its cost of doing business, in terms of interconnect fees with other operators and cell site rents.
AT&T is likely hoping subscribers just won't notice their per-line bill is going up $1.23 a month versus where it was a few months ago, and in the process, could net almost a billion dollars in additional revenue according to one analyst. This could allow AT&T to finance up to $10 billion in new debt to expand its ever-broadening media empire. The fee is being assessed against all postpaid subscribers, regardless of their service plan or any grandfathering. AT&T says the fee is related to its cost of doing business, in terms of interconnect fees with other operators and cell site rents.
If it's part of the cost it's part of the cost. They advertise costs that are bfore Fees. People get this when it's taxes and 911 fees but fees that GO to ATT are B.S. deception.
why not advertise free service*
* plus $64/mo content delivery fee.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What's wrong with making various costs individual line items? I'd rather that companies did it with everything down to the CEO's stripper and cocaine party expenses. Government regulations aren't free and your wireless carrier is going to pass any costs on to you regardless of whether they're from duly enacted laws or poor business decisions made by the company. At least you can see what the cost of those regulations are and if you don't feel as though you're getting your money's worth, petition your representatives in government for changes to those regulations.
You're paying the full bill either way. Would you really be happier if it were just a single lump sum with no additional information? Ignorance may be bliss, but it isn't particularly useful.
Does it really matter whether it's a direct $X tax or fee imposed by the government or merely the internal costs of dealing with some policy (e.g., data retention) that is government law as long as the amount is truthful? If the company is ineptly managed, I still end up paying more. If I care enough about it, I can compare the rate to another provider and see if they have lower fees.
I get that at some point you have to stop breaking it down as I don't care that $0.000001 of those administrative costs were to cover paper clips or that $0.00003 of the advertising budget went to a billboard in a little league ball park, but I don't want "total: $85.73" to be the only line on the bill either.
Ultimately, consumers are only going to be sensitive to the total cost, regardless of how it is broken down, but cost of business increases due to regulations are going to hit every company and are inescapable in that the cost is passed on to consumers. If it turned out that regulations were 50% of the total cost of doing business, you might be rather curious as to whether or not they were really necessary or what value these regulations were providing. In the case of taxi services, those costs seemed to be relatively high and people were rather remiss to pay them, which is why companies like Uber and Lyft have become so popular.
The problem is inflation seems to be a good excuse for companies and utilities to raise pricing, but never seems to be a good excuse to allow people cost of living raises. It's not about inflation. If it was, the increase in what a company is taking in would be funneled out in salaries to the entire employee base. Instead, it's funneled directly to the owners and upper levels of management, while the rest of the people get dick and told to like it. Then the management wonders why we're angry as they report their record profits year by year and we're told they can't afford to pay us more come review time.