Okay, I get both my phone bills, local (Bell Atlantic) and long distance (Sprint). Here are the taxes and fees:
Federal Subscriber Line Charge:..............$10.42
Local Number Portability Surcharge...........$ 0.46
Wire Maintenance Service Fee.................$ 5.90
Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge.....$ 0.70
911 Fee......................................$ 0.60
Telecommunications Access of Maryland Fee....$ 0.40
Local Surcharge..............................$ 1.21
Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge.................$ 0.56
Federal Taxes................................$ 1.29
State Taxes..................................$ 0.08
Presubscribed Line Charge....................$ 1.50
State Gross Receipts Surcharge...............$ 2.04
Carrier Universal Surcharge..................$10.29
Federal Exise Tax............................$ 4.25
.......................................**Total $39.70**
No, I’m not being double-dipped (I called both providers). None of these charges are for call waiting, call forwarding, call fondling, or such (I don’t want any bells and whistles). This is just basic no-frills service.
I don’t mind paying for the calls I make, but almost $40/month in taxes? I’m sorry, but that is ridiculous.
Here’s something else: My basic service is $9.72/month. I added a line for internet connection, and that line costs $26.48. How does that work? I mean, if they can charge less than $10 for a number, how can they justify $26 for a second one? If anything, it should be less.
Hey, I’m all for capitalism and charging what you can get, but isn’t this industry regulated pretty heavily? There’s certainly enough taxes to indicate this.
Heh, I recently ditched my wired phone service and now rely completely on the cell phone. (I did have to get cable modem service, but I was gonna do that anyway.) I find that cell service is actually cheaper, since those carriers have to compete for your patronage.
Actually, having once worked for the phone company in Illinois, I know in Illinois this is an optional service to basically insure that your premises wiring stays functional. Generally a waste of time and money.
That’s optional here in Ohio, too. And I agree, it’s probably a waste of money, especially at $5.90/month. That seems a bit steep for a few dozen feet of chickenshit little copper wires.
I live in an apartment complex where the wires are older than Methusala. I’ve had more problems with my lines (including someone tapping into my dial tone and calling Italy for the tune of $400). Intermittant or absent dial tone, static, etc…
If it were just my jack, I could service it myself, but the “free” coverage stops as soon as Bell’s line hits the complex, not my particular unit. Of course, the complex management company says it’s not their problem to pay for. So, I pay.
I definately need this service, although $5.90 is more than I’ve paid anywhere else. Actually, I don’t think it should be my responsibility at all. I mean, if Bell Atlantic can’t get me a consistent dial tone, they should fix it for no charge.
I made the mistake of not having ‘wire insurance’ at my last apartment (Arizona). No dial tone = $70 service call.
Forty bucks in taxes - holy shit, man. Move to Canada. Basic service on my phone line is about $40 INCLUDING taxes, and that’s in semi-worthless Canadian money.
I thought taxes in the U.S. were supposed to be lower. But when it comes to utility companies, I suppose their capacity for theivery knows no bounds. You should see the cable companies up here - My God, it’s like a nightmare.
How’s this one:
My company (a very small non profit) ditched A T & T as the ld carrier quite a few years ago. I have a block on ld calls so that the person has to punch in a code in order to have the call go through, and I’m the ONLY one who can do this (well, what happens is that you get a tone, and no one has ever asked me what to do now…) So, the other day, I got a LD phone bill from A T & T, for a 900 # (about $10). I spent 20 minutes on the phone calling the number listed on the bill to speak to them about it, couldn’t get through to a human, kept getting the option to “sign up on our web page…” spare me. I don’t do business with you, I don’t want our info ON yr web site. anyhow. FINALLY got through (by calling the number in the phone book, not the one on the bill) and pointed out to the idiots that the phone line that the call was made from WASN’T even ours!!! (we’d had 3 phone lines a decade ago, I dropped one of them off about 7 years ago). geez. bottom line, I spent $30 of my corporate time to fix their $10 error. grrrrrrr
That being said, thanks to the 1996 Telecommunications Act there should be CLEC’s (competative local exchange carriers)in the area that can offer you a choice in service. I’d check out the front of the phonebook and under telephone in the Yellow Pages.
Actually, I don’t think that’s a fee for him calling 911 himself, but instead an overinflated fee to cover the costs of the free 911 calls everyone else makes. I could be wrong about, but that’s the way I took it.
Actually, soda, imagine the level of anger experienced by those poor schnooks who pay the 911 tax/fee, but still don’t have 911 service available. And your not charged for calling 911, you oay that amount whether you use the service or not.
Me, I figure that whatever the fee I pay might be worth it. Even if I never call 911, others can. But then, I’m a veritable font of human kindness.
That 911 fee is a “surcharge” (what’s the difference between a surcharge and a tax? Nothing, if you ask me) added to your bill by your local governmant, either city or county, to supposedly pay for setting up and maintaining 911 emergency services.
I can remember lots of people complaining about it when they saw it on their phone bills and they didn’t have 911 service (I was a customer service rep for the phone company, and no, I’m not anymore, thank goodness!).
It seems like most local governments that CAN charge that fee DO, and even if you don’t have the service, the proceeds are supposed to go into some kind of fund to create one.
We (phone co. service reps) used to have a list of explanations of all the taxes on the customer’s bills, and let me tell you, it was really difficult for me to try to sell someone call waiting after explaining all that stuiff to them. Actually, I usually didn’t which is one of the reasons I was requested to leave their employ.
I agree with divemaster, to be charged so much more for a second line is ridiculous! Not only that, but we had a second line in our house already b4 we moved in and we had to pay to get it activated, plus service charges for them coming to the house! If you ask me phone companies are out to screw you out of as much money as possible. Isn’t there anything we can do about this? We have a few more options these days for local service, but why are long distance companies the only ones who continually lower their prices for per min. charges and basic service fees? I wish local phone companies would do this as well.
What I hate about phone companies is when you move into an apartment building, which obviously had phone service just a couple of days before you got there, and the fuckers charge you something like $90.00 for “installation.” You sons of whores just flipped a fucking switch!!! That’s all you did! Wait, allow me to recreate that technological magic that you charged be almost a hundred goddamn dollars for: click
Wow! Thanks a fucking lot! Anything else you would like to do for me? Maybe I can hire one of you bastards to stand in my kitchen and turn on the light for me so I don’t have to? How about ten thousand dollars a week? Does that sound fair, you pieces of llama shit?
divemaster, what you should know is that they artifically lower the cost of the first phone line as to make it affordably to the poor. Actually if you’re broke enough, I’m sure that the will waive some of the surcharges for you, or have the gov’t foot some the bill. However, it means that any additional line you suscribe to will cost you more.
And not that I see this is Bell-Atlantic we’re talking about, I take back anything that I may have said above that leaves anyone with a favorible impression of them.
Sometimes when a customer gets new service, all it takes to get the service turned on is “flipping a switch” (actually a command on a keyboard, and it’s done digitally).
However, that isn’t always the case. Every residential phone jack doesn’t have dedicated wires going to the nearest phone co. local office. What it has is a line to the telephone box in the building (aka “telephone network interface” or as the tech’s called them, the “netpop”) and from there the wiregoes to the pole, where there is another box, and between that box and the local office there can be any number of intermediate switching points.
So here’s an example. You move into an apartment that’s been vacant for a month, which had phone service then. However, two weeks ago the guy across the hall decided he needed another line for his alarm system (he already had one for himself, one for the kids, and one for his computer). Instead of running a line all the way from the central office, the phone company used the line that USED to go to your new apartment for this guys new line. Which means when you want your line installed, someone has to find a wire not currently in use that goes to your building and hook it up. And if all the lines to your building, or your phone pole, or your block, or your subdivision, are already in use, they have to get a new one out to you. Running a new line from the pole isn’t that big a deal for the techs, but I can recall one occasion where a customer was hysterical because he had to wait 4 days for a new cable to be laid from the central office because all the facilities in his area were in use.
Of course, no one would want to pay for new cable to be laid, so the phone co. charges a flat fee to get the service to the netpop in your building. The phone company doesn’t own the phone wiring in your building, the property owner does, so the phone company can’t even guarantee that once they have it working at the netpop, it woks in your apartment.
Now, don’t misunderstand me, I dislike the phone company too, but my dislike is more for things like the CEO making two thousand times my salary for the same number of hours of work, if not less. And the “you have to attempt to sell to customers every time they call” policy they had.
But occasionally I sit back and think that the fact that anyone on the planet can pick up the phone, push a few buttons, and make this thing on the desk next to me ring is something akin to magic.
ReservoirDog, Number one - why did the apartment obviously recently have phone service? Because someone lived there? That does not necessarily mean they had phone service. There are various reasons for not having phone service - two of them are:
some people strictly use their cells.
some people are not eliglible for phone service because they rang up high bills and screwed us out of the money.
Number Two - My company charges about $25.00 to turn on the service. It is NOT FLIPPING A SWITCH. There are orders to be written, jumpers need to be wired to the frame, someone has to check to be sure that the cable pairs are functional, someone has to program your long distance choices into the switch and program any features you get, the caller id database needs to be updated with your name and new phone number, the people who print the directory need to be notified, and the directory assistance operator needs to be notified. I’m sure there’s more, but I haven’t worked in every department here, yet. DOES THIS SOUND LIKE FLIPPING A GODDAMNED SWITCH??? So, get a clue before you start running your mouth about something which you obviously know nothing about.
divemaster, Bell Atlantic is a complete ripoff. My company sits right on the edge of Bell territory and I can’t believe some of the horror stories I hear from their customers. The charges my company impose are exactly the same on every line. Additional lines end up costing a bit more because the government considers additional lines a luxury and charges higher surcharges.
We have no responsibility for the wiring inside your home or apartment, because we have no control over what you or the people that lived there before you did. If the person that lived in the apartment before you was a jerk and cut the jack wires (or whatever)(it does happen) why should the phone company be responsible? If you try to run another jack in your house and you do it wrong or use the wrong type of wiring and end up blowing the rest of your inside wire, why should the phone company be responsible? If you are buying a new home and your contractor was a dumbass and wired all the jacks incorrectly, why should the phone company be responsible? OTOH, $5.90 a month is outrageous for a wire care plan (but, if your wires are as bad as you say they are, don’t give it up - it’s still cheaper than a service call. Your landlord should really do something about that, it’s his building, therefore his responsibility to keep the wiring in shape).
BTW, the Federal Subscriber Line Charge is $3.50 not $10.42, I’d call your phone company about that - that’s a federal charge and I don’t believe the phone company reserves the right to increase it.
Local number portability charge? Did you request to have an exchange that is different from your neighbors - one from outside of your town? If not, you shouldn’t be paying that, either. (Unless the scumbags are charging you because the possibility to port your number exists in their system (and I wouldn’t put it past them).
The carrier charge is $10.29? That’s a long distance surcharge. Are you paying that on your local bill? If you are - get it taken off. And, BTW $10.29 is unreasonable. ATT charges $1.99. My company charges $0.
OESGal - We are regulated out the wazoo. We are even regulated on stupid things, like how long our office can be open - we had to petition the PSC so that we could stay open until 8PM. They regulate till we’re blue in the face. We wanted to lower our basic line rate in one area so that we could better compete with a little start up company that came into the area - PSC said “ok, you can lower that, but you MUST raise the cost of your features and you can’t have any special promotions for X amount of months.” They don’t want us to be able to lower our rates, they are afraid of a monopoly. That said, my company charges the bare minimum that we are allowed. As a matter of fact we lose money per phone line. We make it up in the “extras”, the call waiting, caller ID, internet, etc.
That charge to send the tech out that you don’t think was necessary, it was necessary. We don’t want to send anyone out if we don’t have to. It wastes our time and costs us more than we are charging you. Those techs could be put to much better use clearing troubles and cleaning up cut cables and going to orders that really need a tech and such. We are currently two weeks out for new service - why would we want to waste our time going to your house if we didn’t need to?