 TZi
join:2001-07-05
Miami Beach, FL
1 edit | Not to be the devils advocate.... (but) Although the bells may be abusing this privilege, it seems that the idea of itemizing these charges on your bill is well intentioned. Best I can tell, these fees come about from the actions of the government, be it state federal or local. It would seem the original intention of itemizing these on your bill would be to add some degree of regulatory/legal transparency. When these charges come up as separate items on your bill, the bells are basically trying to say, "we didn't want to raise your bill but the government is now requiring to do xxx." There remains much to be said about how the bells are managing the USF or regulatory service fees though. At this point it's almost certain that the regulatory recovery fees are padded for the profit of the bells.
One outcome is quite certain, you're not going to get rid of random regulatory fees by complaining to the bells; doing that will more than likely prompt them to absorb said cost into your standard monthly fee. As long as these remain itemized charges on our bills, we can write to our elected officials or relevant government agencies questioning said fees and/or requesting that they be dissolved all together.
All things considered, there ought to be a sunset provisions at which point the bells are required to consider said fees part of their published rates and moreover, they ought to include the actual end cost of services when advertising.
I know this is probably an unpopular point of view, but this is something to consider when some people on this site start complaining about the lack of broadband in rural areas and that the government ought to intervene. I can't imagine what the "regulatory recovery cost" for providing every nowheresville USA, pop. 21 with broadband internet access would be. Furthermore, I would have preferred that FCC have transferring wireless subscribers pay the actual cost of local number portability. This would have been more effective at actually representing the cost of portability and wouldn't have been a free-for-all for wireless companies to tack on additional fees. |
