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| Total cost? Given that it's from "the phone company", they can be expected to continue charging all applicable fees and taxes they currently charge--"applicable" as in "all"--over and above the "list" price. Yep, VoIP ain't what it used to be [about]: cheap calling to/from anywhere.
I already "leverage" my broadband connection for VoIP, so I really don't need to pay an additional $45, $50, or more for the pleasure of getting the same or similar from Verizon. If they want to make telco phone service relevant again, then just eliminate the line-item charges and reduce the price on the existing land-line service. | |
 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | I agree with your notion that going with your Internet provider for VOIP is about as smart as going with your Internet provider for email. Besides, Verizon can't support or manage the services that they offer now.
Now they have another service for Phillipino techs to read the manual to me as they're getting shouted at by their supervisers in Tagalog!?!! I swear to Holy Hell that Verizon never calls its own support lines!
That said, almost all these services line-item their taxes and fees. They do it in order to make you want to pressure regulators to relieve them of those fees. If they priced them in, they'd still have to pay them so you're not saving any money. They should be disclosed before you sign up.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon -- KJ7RL
What you do at Christmas does not matter so much; What counts are the Christmas things you do all year through. | |
EPS
join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA | reply to meh37
If Verizon charges you taxes (non-tax fees are different, of course) that are not applicable for the services that you are purchasing from them (i.e., POTS-specific taxes for VoIP), that would seem to be fairly good grounds for a lawsuit or something, wouldn't it? | |
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
 ·SONIC.NET
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to funchords
said by funchords:That said, almost all these services line-item their taxes and fees. They do it in order to make you want to pressure regulators to relieve them of those fees. If they priced them in, they'd still have to pay them so you're not saving any money. They should be disclosed before you sign up. That's perverse logic at best. Telco has the lobbyists to counter these taxes; the public does not. Telco buys access to every state legislature and congressman, not the taxpayer.
The taxpayer votes for "tax reductions" that end up being increases (Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Sacramento, to name a few). | |
| reply to funchords
The funny thing (to me anyway) is that the ability to line-item taxes, fees, and surcharges was lobbied for by the telcos, as you say, to show the customer just how much of their money is not going to actually providing the service but to "overhead". The effect, however, has been almost the opposite of what the telcos wanted. All of those "extra" charges are really part of the cost of doing business; the ultimate effect of breaking them out has more than anything convinced the customer that he or she doesn't desire the service at all, so the customer will find an alternative that comes as close as possible to simply having an all-inclusive cost, or just dropping it altogether. Of course, the govt. has been moving those taxes/fees/etc. onto VoIP as quickly as it can manage it to make up for the "lost" revenue (in spite of the fact that those charges were meant to be on the PSTN infrastructure more so than the service, which, since VoIP is a data service, makes me feel immensely cheated to have to pay any additional charges for it). | |
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