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Dear 'exec',
After a roundabout discussion with one of SE's support staff, who was at least polite, I've been referred to this email address to post my concerns about the Regulatory Compliance Fee on my monthly invoice.

The ticket thread is here:
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Overall, I am not satisfied with the official explanation; essentially,
"The fees, Regulatory Compliance Fee and Federal Regulatory Fee, combined before the change in regulation (3.39+3.97) amounted to 7.36. Now that the fee was simplified to just the Regulatory Compliance Fee it went down to 6.30--that's where the savings is.

All of that 5.95% is being used to cover extensive increases in cost directly associated with regulatory compliance."

This explanation is not satisfactory considering, "...despite one fee being dropped, your current charges have not been halved. Surely, moving fees from one name to another is a type of accounting trickery SE should be above.

Needless to say, 'regulatory compliance' doesn't actually say a whole lot. What other (non-Federal?) fees specifically are to blame for this burden?"

As also mentioned in the referenced ticket thread, Verizon and Bell South have recently abandoned these fees, pointing even more to the invalidity. I would hope SE could do the same.
Regards,

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...when the government stopped requiring FUSF on broadband connectivity, we were able to pass on some of that savings to customers, but not all.

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...while the FCC eliminated the FUSF fee for DSL, at the same time, they instituted a new requirement that we begin paying into the FUSF fund for VoIP. So you see, this is a dynamic environment. In addition, the FCC has instituted numerous regulatory requirements related to E911, CALEA, and general reporting. These new requirements, especially E911, were rapidly implemented by the FCC, giving industry little time to plan or design automated compliance systems. While large monopolies can easily absorb these additional costs until such systems are in place, smaller competitive voice
and data providers like Speakeasy cannot.

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I sincerely hope this adequately addresses your concerns. It is certainly a dynamic environment: the internet. It is even more interesting when the government begins looking for ways to harvest additional revenue from it.

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