Users in our Verizon forum note how when it comes to below the line fees on your DSL bill, Verizon giveth, and Verizon taketh away. A notice being sent to DSL customers reads as such:"Effective August 26, Verizon will charge a Supplier Surcharge for all DSL customers. The surcharge helps offset costs we incur from our network supplier. The Supplier Surcharge will be $1.20/month for 768Kbps service customers and $2.70/month for higher DSL speeds.
Verizon Online will cease charging an FUSF recovery fee, beginning August 14, 2006. The impact of the elimination of the FUSF fee is for DSL customers up to 768Kbps, fee eliminated is $1.25.month; for DSL customers of up to 1.5Mbps and 3Mbps services, the fee eliminated is $2.83/month. On balance your total bill will remain about the same as it has been or slightly lower."The FCC recently ruled that DSL providers no longer had to pay into the USF, thus the change. To counter the estimated $350 million shortfall that move created, the FCC ruled VoIP providers must now pay into the fund.
As we've long discussed, these fees are not always government sanctioned, and are a way to push rate hikes on customers via below the line fees, not included in the advertised service price. Even the USF fee, some argue, was little more than a largely unmonitored, out of control slush fund.
Our users point out that other providers, such as Speakeasy, are performing a similar re-balancing act with their "unfees".