DSL Extreme → Supplier Surcharge Recovery price increase

Just gotten an email with this information "Effective July 1, 2008, the Supplier Surcharge Recovery (SSR) line item on your bill will increase by 95 cents. The new rate for the Supplier Surcharge Recovery (SSR) will be $2.88 per month."

Wondering how many here will use this to get out of the contract, being that this is material change to the contract and both party have to agree to it. In this case you guys.

Heck, everything else is going up (except my income), why not this?

OP's point is that if you have a term contract, (and if DSLX enforces this price increase on current contracts) this breaks DSLXs side of the contract, so at the very least the contract is not binding on you. At the most, it could subject DSLX to further liability.

George--Can you look into this? It seems to me that it should not apply during the term of a current contract.

DSLExtreme's terms and conditions for DSL indicate "The taxes and surcharges may vary on a monthly basis; any variations will be reflected in your monthly charge."

While that is true, it's still material change to the contract and should let anyone that wants to get out of contract away out without having to pay early termination charge.

95 cents won't get me to give up my $12.95 service, but who's getting this fee? AT&T

First my philosophical view. Everything has been increasing like crazy, hyperinflation is well upon us, unemployment is on the rise, and I have just been laid off. Hell, the city just slapped me with some bs "prop 13" basically raising the my property tax because they said the value of my home has increased by 2%, yet I see the prices of the houses on sale around here have dropped considerably.

At this point, i'm almost at the end of my contract, so really for me, it's not even worth it to think about 95 cents. But for those still on a near-full contract, you're looking at .95/mo which means less than $12/yr max. To tell you guys the truth, my monthly fee to pay for gas just to communte to work (before laid off) was $200/mo. I ain't complaining about 95 cents. So no, I'm not about to raise a hissy about this fee increase.

Furthermore, my understanding is that DSLX does NOT make any profit out of this "recovery fee". Am I right??? There was a discussion about his recover fee a long time ago, and I think someone from DSLX said that this fee is controlled by the telco. So to me, if the telco is controlling things, then we're pretty much at their mercy. And DSLX's terms and conditions have clearly stated that taxes and surchages may vary. Now I suppose if you were to go to a judge, and you told him that you wanted to get out of a contract because the "taxes and surcharges" has increase to the point where it constitute 20% of your total bill, then the judge "might" just see it your way, and the judge might agree that in this case, DSLX's terms and conditions were unreasonable and designed to bait & swith people. But at 95 cents, no judge is going to waste him time defending you, especially DSLX has stated that in their terms and conditions.

Now what I would like to know is, do the telcos charge their OWN clients this same recovery fee??? If they do, then switching over to them is kinda like a woman who marries the guy who raped her. It just makes no sense.

However, I would like to hear what George has to say about this.

I always call these the 'unfees'. I strongly believe that service provider charges should be up front with a single figure - i.e. ($27.87/mo for 3M DSL!) They should be up front, and charge their actual price and advertise it as such.

All these tacking on of fees and surcharges lets the providers offer a lower price (i.e. $24.99), but ends up upsetting customers after they find all the fine print. While DSLX's charge isn't too terribly bad, the other telecom companies (namely cell phone providers and landline providers) are the worst.

That is why I don't understand why new customers of DSLX get upset when they don't see the "full" charges for service when DSLX has no control over the "extra" charges the ILEC charges DSLX. DSLX can only advertise the price they have control over which is the base price without the extra ILEC charges. Someone should "test" the extra charges the ILEC charges in court!

No, it is not. Taxes and surcharges may vary on a monthly basis is part of the surcharge. The contract rate is still the same, and this part is outside of that rate. DSL charges you $X, and the government/PUC/Telco charges a supplier surcharge, which is collected and passed back.

But at the same time, I can see the other end of the argument. What if the Company gradually hiked the surcharges up to $14.99/mo? Its then a very grey area, and you can then argue that its nowhere near the 'advertised price' you signed up with. Pay $24.99 + $14.99 in surcharges = very, very grey area.

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Hell, the city just slapped me with some bs "prop 13" basically raising the my property tax because they said the value of my home has increased by 2%, yet I see the prices of the houses on sale around here have dropped considerably.

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That prop 13 is a good thing. It limits your property tax increase to a maximum of 2%. Without it my property taxes would have more than doubled in the last 9 years.

If you feel your home's assessed value is less than the shown assessed value, you should have your home re-assessed. They explain how to do this on your property tax bill.

95 cents is not a trivial increase, almost 50% more. I see it as a sign that the telcos are feeling the pinch. I think people are getting to the point where if its DSL or gas for the car, bye bye DSL so they try to make up by charging their remaining customers more.

DSL Extremes Supplier Surcharge Recovery (SSR) fee is not a tax. The money does not go to any government agency.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently ruled that DSL providers no longer had to pay into the Universal Service Fee (USF). The FCC ruling to cut the USE was based upon broadband service providers complaint that cable providers were not required to pay into the USE.

Broadband providers said that the elimination the Universal Service Fee would lower cost and make them more competitive with cable companies.

The Surcharge a greedy attempt by many boadband providers to keep the money from the fee cut. DSL Extreme decided to add an additional 95 cents to what its customers were already paying into the USF.

The FCC estimated that the elimination the Universal Service Fee would save consumers $350 million dollars.

DSL Extreme and other telecommunication companies want to keep the money its customers were paying into the USF and charge them extra for doing so.

To answer some questions, is it a crime to raise prices? NO. Is it a breach of the contract for DSL Extreme to add a non-government fee? PROBABLY.

The real question is: who will be the first to contact an attorney about filing a class action lawsuit?

We've bought our home over 15 years ago, so the assessed value on it now is still lower than all the the other free-falling houses. But still, I think that it's unfair to in a way penalize those who bought their homes a long time ago and have to pay the 2% "market increase" when the market is decreasing. But I should be thankful that our property tax is still 1%! These days, seems like the common man (or woman) is getting screwd left and right!

If what you said is true, then you're saying that a DSL provider can just use this loophole to raise prices on their customers. So instead of raising the "service fee" which would constitute a breach, DSL provider would put in a loophole to allow them to raise "surcharges" on the contract.

Yes, if this is the case, then there is definitely grounds for a class action. I've read that trial judges especially hate loopholes if they see one.

But this may be all moot for me as I'm laid off and I'm already thinking cutting internet all together when my contract is up soon and move to Asia for a much needed 3 month vacation while I collect unemployment!

Unfortunately, this kind of misleading terminology is nothing new. It's a common practice in the telco industry to try to make these "surcharges" look like they are required by the government or actual taxes.

DSLextreme is going to have a tough time retaining customers when renewal time comes up. I will definitely be looking around ...

I'll withhold my judgement until George explains it out.

But assuming that DSLX is the party that will benefit from that 95 cents, then ok so be it. My question to everyone in southern california is, what are the alternatives?? Guys are saying they'll be "looking around". I'm sure most of you have already looked around before!

I'm in an SBC area and currently I'm on the 6000/768 package currently paying $34.88 out the door with DSLX. Add .95 and my monthy bill would be $35.83 out the door. I just checked SBC price, and their 6000/768 package is $35/month not including taxes yet; with taxes, it'll probably be higher than DSLX, no? So SBC isn't the alternative for me either! See the problem here, I (and many of you too) don't have a good alternative. Cable? I had Cox before and glad I got rid of it 6 years ago.

The only good think I see in SBC is that they have no yearly contract. And the good thing (for me) in DSLX is they have a pretty good complimentary newsgroup service. Hmmm, seems to me that the "cost" of DSL has pretty much become commoditized (just like milk), and you're just pretty much buy it for the service.

But for those who are price conscious (like me), I would really like to see you list your alternative solution in your area. My SBC/Cox area gives me no real alternative. I'm not here to defend DSLX or anything, but I'm really curious what the alternatives you guys are looking at.

I really don't think DSLX has the power to be dictating any pricing pattern or practices here. DSLX is probably just using the telco's "standard industry practices" as a price guide when it comes to pricing scheme.

I'm sure that George is reading this thread.

I wish he would comment on this.

Well I'm sure once you guys started mentioning "class action lawsuit" it's probably in his best interest to avoid this thread...

Here's George's reply to the Supplier Surcharge Recovery price when it first was started:

»Re: Will ExtremeDSL drop FUSF fee? :

What is the Supplier Surcharge?
The Supplier Surcharge is comprised of Federal Universal Service Fund recovery fees that are still charged on core components within the DSLExtreme network as well as a supplier imposed surcharge which is not a tax or government imposed fee. Although the FCC stopped requiring the FUSF contribution on each client’s loop, our ATM aggregation circuits and other transit circuits which carry end-user DSL Internet service do continue to incur an FUSF cost from our carrier. Additionally around the same time the FCC eliminated the per-circuit FUSF, our suppliers increased the per-loop wholesale cost by a similar amount. The net result is a Supplier Surcharge Recovery which is lower than the previous FUSF, of which a portion is going toward our suppliers for the new higher wholesale loop cost, and a portion covers FUSF costs related to ATM aggregation and transit circuits.

Also discussed back in Nov. 2007:

»Recovery Fee?

You got that right! And I don't think George wanna get involve in this discussion because I don't think he's the decision maker concerning this.

Anyway, I'm not even remotely close to considering suing DSLX in any sort of suit. Sueing DSLX may possibly get you back a few nickels and dimes after the lawyers have their fills. DSLX will then either be forced to raise their prices to compete with the telcos, or go out of business. Then I'm left with SBC or Cox??? yeah like that's gonna be to my benefit.

People need to realize that in bigger picture, suing a local competitor that is competing with the telcos... will only ultimately doing the telcos a favor. Ugh, I will not be participating in any class action here.

Seriously, has anyone even looked at the alternatives yet? I couldn't really find any!