TeleTruth

Teletruth News Alert —-October 29th, 2008

TAKE ACTION: STOP the FCC from Raising Your Phone Rates and Taxes Through
Back-Room Dealings.

Demand a Full Audit of ALL Phone Costs and Accurate Data Before Any
Increases. Demand Congress Investigate the FCC’s Flawed Data.

Click here to send a letter to the FCC and Call Congress: – Don’t Raise Our
Phone Rates and Taxes! Get Accurate Data First.
http://www.teletruth.org/StopFCCIncreases.htm

Summary of the Issues:
http://www.teletruth.org/FCCincreasessummary.htm

While the current presidential candidates tell us they won’t raise our
taxes, rumor has it that on Election Day, the FCC will announce a series of
increases to your phone rates and taxes. It is a put on job by AT&T,
Verizon and the other local phone companies who submitted a plan two years
ago. It was laughed at because it just gives more money to the phone
companies – without a financial justification.

What is really appalling is this major decision could be made on Election Day when the country will be distracted, but more importantly, many of the items that are about to be increased are not being done as open meetings with comments but as something called “ex parte” submissions – separate meetings by the phone companies to raise your rates – You have no say in this process; your rights are being trampled on as there is no due process.

What’s happening? All of these items are on the table:

1) Raising the FCC Line Charge – possibly to $10.00 a month (it’s on
every local bill), which is also taxed. The FCC Line Charge does not go to fund the FCC, but is direct revenue to the phone companies.
2) Raising the FCC Line Charge on Business Rates – Rumor has it could
reach $13-$15 a month.
3) Raising the Universal Service Fund (USF) Tax, currently at 11.4%.
4) Raising or adding a new USF Tax — have customers pay for broadband
deployment, even though the FCC has never investigated the billions
per state already collected for broadband.

All these actions are being played against a backdrop of:

5) The FCC is using flawed data on local and long distance rates to
help raise rates.
6) The FCC isn’t examining the current local rate increases or phone
Charges, which is happening throughout the US.

These are very complicated, arcane issues but the bottom line is — We
believe these changes are unjustified de-facto rate and tax increases that
should be stopped and investigated.

And your bills? Since 2000, in almost all states, your residential bill has increased over $250 dollars for no reason. If the plan goes through, it could increase the costs an additional $50+ dollars annually as the FCC Line Charge is also taxed a Universal Service Fee, as well as state and local taxes and surcharges. And this is on top of all of the current local phone rate and long distance increases happening throughout the US. Virtually every charge, from directory assistance to inside wiring or Call Waiting have seen increases, not to mention local rates. Worse, increases to Universal Service increases also will be adversely impact long distance and wireless and broadband by the proposed FCC decision.

And right now both the Universal Service and FCC Line charge fees have
become corporate slush funds, with billions being collected as direct
payments to the phone companies. The FCC data is flawed, unaudited, and worse, politically driven to help the phone companies get your money.

In short, the phone companies, including Verizon and AT&T will get billions
in excess fees – your money. This is nothing more than taxation with bad
representation.

• Read our Summary and Mini-reports on USF and the FCC Line Charge.
• http://www.teletruth.org/FCCincreasessummary.htm

Then, if you agree — Take Action: Tell the FCC and Congress to stop these increases and investigate our claims. Don’t Raise Our Phone Rates and Taxes!
http://www.teletruth.org/StopFCCIncreases.htm

Reading Materials:
• Mini-Report on USF: “20 Reasons why the Universal Service Fund is an Out
of Control Slush Fund And What to Do about it.”
• http://www.teletruth.org/USFReport.htm

• Read our original complaint from 2004 against raising the FCC Line Charge
• http://www.newnetworks.com/PRFCCLIne.htm

• Read our analysis of the current plan to raise the FCC Line Charge based
the AT&T’s proposed “Missoula intercarrier compensation plan”
• http://www.teletruth.org/docs/TeletruthMissoula.doc

• Read about local phone rate increases in New York, New Jersey
• http://www.newnetworks.com/verizonincreases.htm

• Read about increases to California rates from the LA Times:
• http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-att24-2008oct24,0,3867945.story

• Read how AT&T and Verizon/MCI have had massive price increases, added fees, etc, even though the companies claim that these plans will lower rates. http://www.newnetworks.com/attmciharvesting.htm

• Read our complaint against the FCC’s long distance data.
http://www.newnetworks.com/dataqualityharvest.htm

Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth
bruce@teletruth.org

Tom Allibone, Teletruth
Tom@teletruth.org

1997 Data Was Used to Kill Off Data Requirements on AT&T, Verizon and Qwest. — Part One.

In the last forbearance decision the FCC removed obligations on AT&T, Verizon and Qwest to supply data about various parts of their business –number of lines, how they treated customers (quality of service) and infrastructure build outs.

In this recent document, the FCC is using data from 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2005 to explain why their decision should go through. — And when you track the information you find that most companies no longer exist and were sold to AT&T et al, and that the FCC had later data and knew about these issues but has decided to stick in whatever they feel like with no obligations to supply accurate data about the current marketplace and competition.

Here’s one paragraph using data from 1997 “Wireless Communications Services.  This service can be used for fixed, mobile, radiolocation, and digital audio broadcasting satellite uses.  The Commission established small business size standards for the wireless communications services (WCS) auction.  A “small business” is an entity with average gross revenues of $40 million for each of the three preceding years, and a “very small business” is an entity with average gross revenues of $15 million for each of the three preceding years.  The SBA has approved these small business size standards. [1]  The Commission auctioned geographic area licenses in the WCS service.  In the auction, held in April 1997, there were seven winning bidders that qualified as “very small business” entities, and one that qualified as a “small business” entity.”

We went to the actual auction information and tracked the companies since 1997— We did all this using Google and Yahoo searches, as well as the SEC’s EDGAR database and the FCC materials. The FCC could have done the exact same thing. In fact, in the case of Telecorp, the FCC knew about this transaction as they had to approve it in 2002.
http://www.fcc.gov/transaction/attwireless-telecorp.html

To sum up. 4 of the 8 were sold off by 2002, 1 never rolled out their services, 1 couldn’t be found, and the 2 others are non-profit co-operatives who receive USF funds

Wireless Spectrum Auction “Designated Entities”, 1997.

Bal\Rivgam, L.L.C. –
Signed a deal with Gabelli and sold off spectrum to Nextwave. Was supposed to roll out “the first commercial 2.3 GHz WCS network in the U.S. The network established by MegaBroadband of Massachusetts.”

Omnipoint Data Company, Inc.—
Omnipoint completed a merger with VoiceStream Wireless. On May 31, 2001, Deutsche Telekom AG acquired 100% of the common shares of VoiceStream.—The German company.

Telecorp Management Corp. Inc.
In 2002, TeleCorp became a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T Wireless.

Pioneer Telephone Association, Inc —Cooperative, non profit.

Valley Telephone Cooperative, Inc. —Cooperative, non-profit

Metricom, Inc.—
Went Bankrupt in 2003. In November 1999, the Company issued and sold to MCI WorldCom, Inc. 30 million shares –at a price of $10 per share, Vulcan Ventures 30 million shares –$10 per share, for gross aggregate proceeds to the Company of $600 million.

Pacific Triangle Communications—
Can’t find post 1997 auction. Most likely a spectrum speculator.

 Cellutec   
Never rolled out anything and asked for an extension of buildout requirements in 2007.

Source of Designated Entities (Small and Very Small Business): http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/Public_Notices/1997/d970886a.html  

There’s a lot more to come.

However, just this one paragraph shows that:

a) Very small business spectrum was given to large corporate concerns who consolidated the industry.
b) the FCC had the power to redo the this analysis of what had occurred to the companies they mentioned in bulk. In fact, the FCC’s own merger decision of Telecorp in 2002, or the tracking the legal actions against Gabelli, all should have been put into this analysis.
c) I also doubt that the FCC received any compensation for the 25%-35% discounts that were applied to this auction.

The FCC can say — “What are you worried about? These companies no longer exist, so that means we can’t harm them with this decision, right?”

Had the FCC tracked this area well, starting from 1992, it might have noticed that virtually all of the small competitors died out, and that their auctions didn’t function well.

Posted in response to articles by Associated Press and Broadcast & Cable:

“Digital TV Transition Concerns Get Technical By John Dunbar, AP
Even if all goes smoothly, the digital television shift is likely to generate hundreds of thousands of complaints from television viewers around the country.
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/09/24/digital-tv-transition-concerns-get-technical/

We just completed a real-world test drive of digital converter boxes in rural Hunterdon County NJ. The first of its kind study can be seen at www.teletruth.org.

The pilot study showed and supports the findings outlined by Centris. When the DTV digital tornado hits next February, thousands of Hunterdon County OTA households will go dark or lose virtually all of their broadcast channels. Ironically, Hunterdon is part of New York under the FCC regulations but every converter test showed “no signal”.

While I concur with the need for immediate action to protect millions of households across the country that are similar to Hunterdon, the DTV crisis may be too late to fix with less than five months to go.

From my perspective, the FCC and NTIA played down the antenna and weak signal issues and this misguided and intentional ommission of the information is unforfiveable.

I attended this week’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing and FCC Chairman Martin continues to spin Wilmington as a success by comparing complaints to all households that include cable and satellite. The fact is that over 40% of complaints were technical in nature involving the antenna and weak signals.

Chairman Martin admitted that he is very concerned and said that 15% of OTA households are at risk of losing some or all of the TV viewing.

For the record, we are requesting that the FCC declare Hunterdon County an “at-risk” community, conduct immediate field testing and build upon our pilot test, assign dedicated FCC staff to Hunterdon and come to Hunterdon to meet all 26 Mayor’s and the community of approximately 130,000.

To be clear, with less than five months to go, Hunterdon County OTA households will be decimated when the tornado hits. At this late stage of the DTV transition, I have already begun planning “search and rescue” operations. The DTV transiton date is in the middle of winter in New Jersey. If Chairman Martin really is serious about “applying” what the FCC learned from Wilmington, he should give strong consideration to delaying the cutover to late spring or summer. At least then, consumers who need to buy a new antenna or upgrade the existing one, will be able to climb onto the roof without snow.

The FCC and NTIA always knew about these issues and they should have been covered in the DTV coupon program. I have cost estimates for a new antenna, rotor and installation exceeding $500, however, finding an antenna installer or a complete package that is guaranteed to work is impossible.

Lastly, at the recent Senate Committee hearing the Senator from Minnesota asked if Chairman Martin would come to her state to install an antenna. Wewould like to extend the same offer to Chairman Martin to assist me with installing a new roof antenna for my home.

http://www.newnetworks.com/dtvreport.htm

Tom Allibone
Director of Audits, Teletruth

>What happens if you DON’T regulate? (posted on a list)

Isn’t that what just happened? — The Telecom Act giveth and the FCC taken away. The definition of ‘deregulation’ is — those with the most amount of money and influence win!

Deregulation was ‘open the network to competition’. Now ‘deregulate the wires’ means deregulate the incumbent from previous laws to open the network to competition.

I think it’s time for some new terms.

Terminator-egulate — To kill previous regulation

Fib-erize — To continue to promise fiber optics to the press release.

Liaregulation or Sayanythingulation. — The uncommittment of whatever you committed to

Derrieregulation — Sit on your ass, claiming you’re doing everything in your power to compete. Ask a Question, Get an Answer ASAP UsDilantinDilantinDoctors’ Answers to “Frequently Asked Questions” - DilantinEach Dilantin� Extended Phenytoin Sodium Capsule, USP�contains 30 mg phenytIncrease of apoptosis, and is oxidized to have dilantin Dilantin Why pay expensive prices, for Dilantin information Find a Deal at OhDeal

Astroturegulation — Get 50 ethnic, hispanic, black, asian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, disabled, senior groups to claim you need new financial incentives and more deregulation.

Killeregulation — Death to VOIP, Munis, anything that moves.

Bruce Kushnick, Tele-the-truth, when we feel like it…..

This piece is based on a number of industry observers, including Bob’s Frankston’s stuff add some of David Isenberg’s stupid network, as well as others. . (forgive me if I missparaphrase…)

Paraphrasing, Bob’s idea is simply that once a customer has ‘infrastructure’ (bandwidth), or multiple delivery platforms to the home, the company that supplies that infrastructure should not be allowed to control it nor restrict it.

David Isenberg’s ’stupid network’, simply put, is that the network itself should not be where the intelligence and applications arises, but at the end points, where the equipment on a customer’s premises handles the application. and is attached to a dumb pipe This was, of course, in contrast to the “Intelligent Network”, that AT&T was touting.

Voice and data are simply other applications. Once everything is TCPIP based and digitized there is no longer any difference between the ones and zeros of data.— Mark Plakias, formerly of Opus research et al, came up with thisnotion back in the 1980’s when he had wanted the French minitel to offerLe voice calls.

To bob, if voice and data are simply traffic over the infrastructure, thenwhy should anyone get in the way of that, such as the phone or cablecompanies.

Encrypt each end, and get everyone else out of the way.

In a world where you buy the bandwidth and choose providers of applications, the bandwidth is, of course, a telecommunications/ transport service. The FCC has no clue and has made the ridiculous bad judgment that once a line carries a specific type of traffic it is suddenly a combined “information service”…. Poppycock.

This definitional stupidity is a political move so that the Bell companies’ DSL no longer has to be resold, nor allows competitors to ‘line-share’ a customers phone line for DSL with Voice. Contact the Fosamax lawyer for your free case evaluation Nationwide: 1-800-856-6405. Fosamax Lawsuits. Generic Fosamax No hassle returns. The Nations Law Firm represents people nationwide who have been injured by Fosamax. Information Services don’t have the same rules as telecom services.

(A note; What should really piss people off is that there never was any need for a second line to use a second wire. The company could have, in the 1980s, duplexed- the line or supplied more than one voice-channel. The reason — they got a lot more money for a second wire and it showed ‘growth’, It also showed corporate
profits vs public interest.) When you line share you also ‘lose-lines’, because twoservices are over the same wire… wonder why the phone companies have ‘lost lines’, here’s one big reason.

Bob would also erase the concept of ‘cable’ as an application.
‘Cable’ with any content, could have ‘packagers’ of content for those who still like the concept of ‘channels’, while at the same time, the customer should be able to select from the millions of program options. I don’t doubt however, that most Americans today like the distinctions of Channel 7, where coherent messaging for a channel is a comforting thought. No thinking for which station when MTV is on…

Or would be pay less if you only liked, say the history channel and not had to take the sports programming or children’s programming…. Imagine building your own package of programming.

Without channels, why shouldn’t Broadway shows or rock concerts or any other live or taped performance simply be some other content offering.

Some, like Joe Plotkin, argue that peer-to-peer is the next generation of content — ‘we the people’ talking or trading with ‘we the people’. Plotkin’s analysis of the Bell’s speed issues is — It’s two-way stupid. If I’m sending video or receiving it, why should one speed be slower in one direction than the other— one reason — hamper VOIP of course. You need it both ways for a conversation, or for a video-conference call.

Jerry Michalski, back in the early 1990’s, was one of the first to discuss another important issue to this discussion—the prioritization of traffic. A voice Internet call needs to be a coherent stream, as compared to using the open Internet for
voice traffic, which can cause service-quality issues.
Unless the bandwidth is segmented somehow, the call may or
may not sound good, and most companies implementing VOIP are going to have to deal with this issue. But should the phone company control this and favor their own products?

However, what we are about to get is a slap in the face of “opennes Home Page Anagen. Tom, Sorry to hearLozol is a prescription drug that is used for treating fluid retention and Lozol comes in tablet form and is available in two (Lozol Continued: Page 2)Physician reviewed Lozol patient information - includes Lozol description, dosage and directions. Generic Lozol The chemical name of Lozol is 1-(4-chloroLozol information from Drugs. Brand Names : Lozol, Lozide, Apo-Indapamide, Gen-Indapamide, Novo-Indapamide, Nu-Indapamide Along with its needed effects, a medicine may cause some unwanted effects. s.”

This article is clearly the fight to come.
> Big Operators See Threat To Service as Web Calls, Videos Clog Up Networks
> By PETER GRANT and JESSE DRUCKER
> Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> October 21, 2005; Page A1
> Several large telephone and cable companies are starting to make it harder for consumers to use the Internet for phone calls or swapping video files.

With AT&T and MCI being bought by one company— that’s right SBC and Verizon are essentially one, big, bad, bell company with two non-overlapping locations, what will happen, is simply a defacto collusion. Territories drawn up, and control of those territories. — All competitors who need backbone… hey, they’re private, and not open to competition Licensed Pharmacy. Hier bei Rossmann online bestellen. Generic Nizoral Order Today. Low Price Guaranteed. …. EXPECT THIS FIGHT!

Walled in, controlled, networks that are not open to competition, where the programming is controlled by the infrastructure providers. Speed controls, network controls, direct involvement with content, everything that is antithetical to competitive growth and innovation.

Getting to have a rational strategy about this in the Digital Age certainly ain’t going to come from this Administration.

I used to think that the states were more of a policy nuisance, since you had 50 of them to make policy and getting them to all agree was almost
impossible.

I now think that this federal plan — the FCC deems everything interstate and in their control vs the states, backing the large corporations and pitched by the Republicans, seems backward. Ironically, the Clinton-Gore ticket was based, in part, on
fiberizing the country — National Infrastructure Initiative and it was a federal plan.

The wake up of the Municipalities in the last few years, as work-arounds to the phone companies’ failed deployments is interesting, but will they, too, succumb tot he power of the dark side? Will they fight for the openness, or simply try to regurgitate previous models, wireline or wifi.

The states were and still are the incubators of ideas, and the FCC and phone companies will try to kill it off so that their walled in cities aren’t overrun by the mongrel hordes…

So, how do we take back what should be a utility and has been treated as ‘’free market’ concerns when they still control essential facilities. — Work around or get it back.

And how do we move from walled in cities to open, fiber pipes (or wifi)?

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Bob Frankston
BOBF.FRANKSTON.COM

I received this letter from Shirley Rooker, President of Call To Action,
who is currently the chairman of the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee,
claiming we had a ‘error’ on our web site.

As you will read, we found that Sam Simon, one of the masterminds’ of the Bell companies ‘Skunkworks’, had listed “Called To Action” in his bio for TRAC. The date we found this was January 2005.

It is true that TRAC updated the site, because it has changed since we last visited it… obviously from comments made by Ms. Rooker and others.
http://www.trac.org/about_us/directors.html

Please notice that Call To Action has been eliminated, not the other affiliates, such as “National Consumers League” and the “World Institute on Disability”.

Ms. Rooker claims that Simon was only on the board sometime in the 1990’s.

Here’s our response and her letter. We have not heard from Ms. Rooker about the exact dates Simon was on the board.

You wrote:
>Please note that there is an error on the webpage
>www.newnetworks.com/skunkworks101.html

======================================================

I beg your pardon, but I don’t make mistakes with data. Below is the Sam Simon TRAC bio that was on the TRAC site during the beginning of 2005…. I just checked and noticed it was recently updated.

However, as you will see, the material on the site — that I quoted —-had no date and the language indicates that the connection to Call For Action is current, not past tense. As I said, I don’t make mistakes with data.

Please give us the exact dates of when he was and was not on your board and I will adjust this.

And if you no longer want to be associated with Sam Simon, as the Chairman of the Consumer Advisory Committee, why haven’t you complained about the fact that APT, TRAC and other groups on your committee are working out of the Issue Dynamic’s cabal, funded by the Bell companies, run by Sam?

How does that help the public interest? It’s the CAC that is in error, I would think.

Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth

===================================

This was the material I quoted.

TRAC president — phone number for TRAC — IDI offices.

Samuel A. Simon, Chairman
Mr. Simon served as Executive Director of TRAC’s predecessor organization, the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting from 1979-1983, when he reorganized it and founded TRAC. Mr. Simon is a lawyer. He graduated from the University of Texas Scho ol of Law in 1970, and went to work as one of the first full-time lawyers for Ralph Nader in June of that year. He served as president of TRAC from 1983 to 1986, and was elected chairman of its board in 1998. Mr. Simon’s professional affiliation is as p resident of Issue Dynamics, Inc., a Washington, DC based consumer affairs firm. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Consumers League, the World Institute on Disability and Call For Action.

==========================================
—– Original Message —–
From: “Shirley Rooker” >
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 3:17 PM
Subject: Web page error

Please note that there is an error on the webpage
www.newnetworks.com/skunkworks101.html
The page contains inaccurate information about Call For Action. Sam Simon is not a member of our board of directors. He served on our board in the 1990’s for less than two years. We have had no connection with him since that time.

Please make this correction immediately. Thank you in advance for honoring
this request

Shirley Rooker
President, Call For Action, Inc.

Teletruth news analysis, August 30th, 2005

An article in the Financial Times, ” Verizon rejects MCI governance condition”, By Stephanie Kirchgaessner, August 25 2005,
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cf83db44-1591-11da-8085-00000e2511c8.html

states that Verizon’s Board of Directors is independent and is not subject to specific corporate governence as part of the MCI deal. “Verizon, the US telecoms giant, has set a closing condition on its $8.5bn takeover of MCI. It will not be subject to corporate governance principles that were adopted by the former WorldCom following its accounting scandal and emergence from bankruptcy”

The article also states that “The principles, which at the time were hailed as a model for other companies, also call for a company’s board to consist entirely of independent directors other than the chief executive, and gave shareholders the right to submit resolutions and nominate board members”.

And it claims that “Nine of Verizon’s 11 directors are independent, including Mr Seidenberg.”
.
However, a letter to the Verizon shareholders by the Bell Tel Retirees, dated April 2, 2004 tells a different story. :
“At least six of the 11 Verizon directors nominated on the 2004 proxy have what we view as material financial
relationships with the Company or its officers, directly or through their firms.

Did it change in 2005?

- BOARD COMPOSITION: ITEM NO. 4 URGES THE BOARD TO
NOMINATE DIRECTIONS SUCH THAT, IF ELECTED, A TWO-
THIRDS MAJORITY OF DIRECTORS WOULD BE TRULY
INDEPENDENT. PROPONENTS PROPOSE A DEFINITION OF
“INDEPENDENT” COMPARABLE TO THE STANDARD ADOPTED
BY THE COUNCIL OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS.

At least six of the 11 Verizon directors nominated on
the 2004 proxy have what we view as material financial
relationships with the Company or its officers,
directly or through their firms. In addition to CEO
Seidenberg, we believe that at least five outside
directors are non-independent due to board interlocks,
or because their own employer receives substantial
grants, fees, or business from the Company, or did in
the very near past.

- Richard Carrion is the CEO of a bank that is
Verizon’s co-investor in Puerto Rico Telephone, in
which Verizon owns a majority share.

- Robert Storey is partner in a firm providing legal
services to Verizon.

- Joseph Neubauer is Executive Chairman and former
CEO of ARAMARK, where Verizon President Lawrence
Babbio participated in setting his compensation
until last year as a member of the board
compensation committee. Verizon’s Board finds him
non-independent (see 2004 proxy, page 3).

- Hugh Price was, until last year, CEO of a nonprofit
that received millions of dollars in grants from
Verizon and included Verizon CEO Seidenberg on its
governing board (Seidenberg has since left the board).

- Sandra Moose, until year-end 2003 was Senior Vice
President of a firm paid at least $3.5 million for
consulting services since 2000.

A more independent board is particularly needed at
Verizon. The Corporate Library rated Verizon’s Board
as one of the “ten worst” among 1,700 U.S. companies
in its 2003 Board Effectiveness Ratings, stating that
“the contracts and compensation policy for both
Seidenberg and former co-CEO Lee contain virtually
every example of excess and lack of control that
could be found at a U.S. corporation, as well as a
few that can be found nowhere else.

Although the Company argues that a substantial
majority of the board is “independent” under the
NYSE’s new minimum standard, we believe that outside
directors should not be considered independent when
they have non-trivial financial relationships with
the Company, or its officers, different from
shareholders generally. By voting for this
proposal, we believe shareholders send a message that
an independent director is a person whose
directorship constitutes his or her only connection
to the corporation.

TeleTruth’s Director of Audits, Tom Allibone, is quoted as an authority on phone bill charges in the New York Times feature, August 27, 2005

A Monthly Mystery: Fee-Plagued Phone Users May Be Mad, but Rebellion Seems Futile
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/27/business/27phone.html

Here’s an excerpt (registration required for the full article)

“For many Americans, figuring out the monthly phone bill has become the consumer’s equivalent of deciphering hieroglyphics, with baffling new fees creating a thicket of items at the bottom of the bill. Some providers like MCI have even started adding a “paper bill” fee to pay for the bill itself.

“…The carriers might promote flat-rate phone plans for, say, $49.99 a month, but once the many indecipherable fees are larded into a bill, a customer may actually pay $10, $20 or more a month.

“The proliferation of these charges is happening because the carriers are playing a shell game, plain and simple,” said Thomas Allibone, an independent auditor and a former member of the consumer advisory committee at the Federal Communications Commission. “They’d rather weather a customer’s complaint because they are making $20 or more in surcharges.”

Teletruth has been documenting problematic phone bill taxes and surcharges, advertised package prices vs actual costs, questions about the FCC Line Charge and Universal Service, and a lot more

For some of the work we’ve been doing:
http://www.teletruth.org/Phone/phone.html

And for the chart the New York Times didn’t run about phone bills
click on http://www.newnetworks.com/dirtyphonebill.htm

To read what’s broken with phone bills and Truth-in-billing.
http://www.newnetworks.com/phonebillinto.html
,