FCC says “too bad” to ISPs complaining that listing every fee is too hard
FCC says “too bad” to ISPs complaining that listing every fee is too hard
Aww ... poor little ISPs.
As a European I'll never cease to find it mind blowing that it is normal for a Americans that the cost to them of damn near everything is more than the cost initially shown to them.
You’re completely right to feel that way. As an American, it’s mind blowing to me, too. I really don’t like the fact that “hidden fees” have become normal.
Traveling in the US it can often feel like everyone wants to scam you or take advantage of you if you don’t pay attention.
Heck, even store prices and restaurant prices aren’t the real price.
Store prices are without sales tax/VAT, and restaurants wants you to tip 20% so they can keep not paying their “employees”.
That's still my favorite EU legislation. The price that is displayed must be equal (or higher, discounts are still allowed) to the price that you pay. Taxes, tips, fees, everything must be included in the price.
I get the "but different states sales taxes thing", for national advert. However even then, just make them present example price
Get the new Moborola Bazer, only 549 dollars
price example for Buffalo new York, including taxes and fees
Since if one is going with "well the final price you pay might not be what was advertised", make it be more representative and real. Yeah the final price might be different sometimes even lower depending on your local taxes compared to the example prices calculation locations taxes.
Local advertising or on the shelf prices? There is no excuse, you are selling in that location. You know what the taxes and fees are just add them in. Any rare special discount and discrepancy cases, well the people eligible for those know to expect the difference.
Some things we have to buy without know the cost, hospital/doctor fees, insurance can surprise you, etc.
It's why the "Oh the Free Market will sort itself out" is such a bullshit claim.
My five year old who just got shot at the fifth school shooting this month is just gonna have to buckle down and be patient while I compare quality of service and cost of... the one hospital in town and.. that one in the next county ever.
/s
It's government mandated. We have variable sales taxes on every product. And it isn't included in the 'price'.
Stores can show out the door pricing of most products, they just won't. It's fairly common in the cannabis space because they don't want to make change.
Variable taxes based on region. The rates don't change within a single store, which is where all of the labels are printed. Just print the label with the tax added.
No it isn’t. But companies are certainly trying to make it so.
It's actually only a few things. The vast majority of the goods we purchase are clearly priced. Most states (and some local jurisdictions like big cities) do have sales tax applied to purchases of non-essential goods, but those rates are generally much lower than the national sales taxes in most European countries.
Sales tax is the most obvious example of adding to the cost I've been shown, but it's everything. Here if there is a price on something that is the price you pay. Period.
If I have €5 and the price on the shelf is €4.90 we are all good, and I don't even need to know what country I'm in!
But is is more than that, if I take my car in to be fixed, they have to agree every cost they want to charge me in advance at no point can anything cost me more than I expected and agreed to up front.
Airline tickets, theatre tickets, hospital bills, TV ads, you name it, the price they state or advertise is what I pay, no ifs-no buts.
I'm seeing it more and more. Little "processing fees" here and there, some tied to COVID, some tied to credit cards. There needs to be a clap-back against this behavior.
It's actually almost everything unless you live in one of the 4 States without sales tax.
It's not about having a sales tax applied to some or all goods or about how much that'd be. It's about not listing the final price including the tax right until you're supposed to pay for it. How dumb is that?
This is why the ISPs don't want to do it. The FCC told them:
Providers are free, of course, to not pass these fees through to consumers to differentiate their pricing and simplify their Label display if they believe it will make their service more attractive to consumers and ensure that consumers are not surprised by unexpected charges.
The ISPs refuse to eat the costs of doing business. They know people will shit when they see all the fees that customers do not need to pay are being charged to them.
There will be lawsuits when the fees are listed.
It's not really about eating the costs of doing business. A restaurant doesn't charge you $1 at the end of your bill for washing your fork, it's just part of the cost of serving the dish and so your Salmon Rice dish is $18 not $17.
The point is that the listed prices for services should either have these fees be built right into the price...as pretty much all businesses do...or if you're going to put it at the end of the bill then it needs to be clearly defined per FCC.
It's a transparency problem. Not only is your $60 cell phone bill not actually $60 but then they also don't tell you about the additional fees very well when they tack them on at the end. It's gotta be one or the other, not neither.
Restaurants also don't have a line item on their bill to make you pay for their anti-unionization efforts. ISPs, on the other hand, do often have a "regulatory recovery fee," the purpose of which is to pay their lobbyists to fight regulators so they can continue to screw you.
An increasing number of restaurants are pulling exactly this sort of bullshit--little 3.5% fees at the bottom of the total check disclosed only in fine print on the menu (if at all) tied to COVID, paying their staff, processing credit cards, etc. It needs to end. Pricing should be upfront so customers can compare what they're actually paying, not snuck in at the end.
Why does everyone try to prove everyone else wrong? That entire first paragraph is completely unnecessary. You can simply add to a discussion without being "well actually " about some detail you want to nitpick. The other two paragraphs are spot on.
Difficulty doesn't make sense, because if they can charge you for it, then they can list it out on your bill.
Unless it's a "we need to show profit growth to our shareholders" fee.
Exactly.
If it's too hard to list them, it must be even harder to charge and bill them.
It is, that's why they probably overcharge you. They figure better to charge you for things and let you figure it out.
My ISP has no problem breaking out the fees.
And.... I am indeed, in the US.
So, not seeing the issue here.
It's not actually about listing the fees. They're worried that if they have to list the fees, customers will realize they're paying 19.99 a month to rent a router, or are getting charged for a land line they didn't ask for.
Americans pay extra for the ability to call emergency line 911!?
911 and similar emergency numbers always cost money.
In many places individuals pays for it through taxes, but people may not realize it because there's 1 tax and 1 big budget that pays for many different public services.
In the US I guess the cost is separated from other public services, and paid through ISP via a fee.
You do too. It just might not be reflected on your phone bill, and is just lumped in with your normal taxes / VAT/etc....
You're paying $130 a month for your internet?? Where in the price gouging place do you live?
130 for 500gb fiber is an awesome deal in the US.
I used to pay $120/mo for business class 50mb asymmetrical coaxial with like 10 up. Had to get business class when Comcast started introducing data caps on the residential tier.
Now my ISP is bundled with my rent, so what I'm actually paying is totally opaque. No idea how much of my rent goes to Comcast. Oh, and it's not optional. I can't even get other service here because Comcast has a partnership with the building owners.
Telcos are fucked here.
Trust me. This is CHEAP compared to what I had a decade ago.
One Decade ago, I paid 95$ a month for "15 mbit" ADSL. Which- topped out around 8Mbit/s on a GOOD day. (Rain/moisture wrecked hell on the lines around here.)
Here's a wild idea, simplify your pricing. Anyways, it's cool to see the FCC stand for the citizens every now and then.
If they can charge for something then they can adequately explain what the thing is they're charging for
Wasn't too much effort to add them to the bills of millions of people...
Okay everybody - this is one of those good things that the Biden Administration and Democrats are doing to properly run government.
It is also something that most people will not know about. Why? Because it's not a simple sound bite.
So my homework to all of us is to make sure our friends and Neighbors who are complaining about government not doing anything for us to point this and similar things out to them.
Real benefits, real work is almost never easily described in sound bites. So many people believe the Democrats don't do what they say they're going to do because getting s*** done is too complicated for most people.
Is this really the Biden Administration and the Democrats?
I think I have read it a few years ago that the FCC has a new head, who is actually there to fix things. I don't remember where I read it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was an EFF article or a Louis Rossmann video.
Yes. The FCC is part of the Executive branch, which is lead by the President, who appoints the leadership of the institutions that carry out the executive branch's assigned job: enforce and execute the law.
So we finally got rid of Ajat eh?
Do we say "fuck a shit pie" anymore?
Was trying to hide that I didn't know how to spell his last name
Wtf is happening in the US? Here I get an advertised monthly price for my subscription, I set up a direct deposit for that exact amount, when I buy it, then forget about it.
Maybe there is a commencement fee one time for the equipment they give me or work they do, but that's all.
How is it legal to advertise and agree on a price, then send random bills?
The companies make the rules since bribery is legal (see lobbying). They set whatever price they want, then use the money to buy the politicians that continue to create stronger pro-corporation laws continuing the lack of choice and change.
Yeah mine is fine in Canada the price is the price per month till a renewal (biyearly). And if you call them they can breakdown bundled price into what each service costs (for business tax expenses)
One of those weird, rare situations where Google seems to do something right. They said the cost was $100, and every month I pay $100. I'm assuming fees are built into that, but my bill never deviates from the price I was told, which is really all I care about.
Google is an ISP now?
Google has run a fiber ISP for a little over 10 years now. It was one of the first U.S. ISPs to offer gigabit speeds to residential customers, and has provided steady competitive pressure to other providers to provide faster speeds in those markets, as well.
Google also operates a mobile service called Google Fi as an MVNO. They handle the billing, but lease the capacity the way other MVNOs do.
Comcast is sad that it can't fuck us in hidden fees anymore. I feel terrible...just terrible for them.
If you can't list em, you shouldn't be able to charge for em
Paying every fee is even harder.
So let's stop doing that as well.
Based FCC
I love when FCC at least appears to do something, not like under Shit Pai.
Frankly though they should revise Title II classification for the Internet and remove exception from the requirement to share last mile to competitors. This is the main reason there's almost no competition. It doesn't make sense for every single ISP to run lines to every home. Those lines should be leaseable.
In some places they are.
In Utah, for example, there's a system called Utopia. They ran fiber all over the place, to the home in most locations. The fiber itself is an Ethernet network owned by Utopia. ISPs then just provide service over said Ethernet network. You can have multiple ISPs at the same time, and they don't actually own the last-mile, or much else
based administration in the WH
Couldn’t happen to a better bunch.
I bought a plane ticket this week and it had all the fees listed. If airlines can do it, so can any multi-national corporation.
They had to be forced to properly show all the fees, only happened in Sept 2022
Of all the technical challenges involved in doing what ISPs do, updating their billing process should be among the least "hard" things on the list. They just don't want to do it.
They could always remove those complex fees and make the bill simpler...
Stop charging the fees that are too hard to list. Problem solved.
Soon there will be a new fee, the "listing fees fee"
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary The Federal Communications Commission yesterday rejected requests to eliminate an upcoming requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees.
In June, Comcast told the FCC that the listing-every-fee rule "impose[s] significant administrative burdens and unnecessary complexity in complying with the broadband label requirements."
The five trade groups kept up the pressure earlier this month in a meeting with FCC officials and in a filing that complained that listing every fee is too hard.
They complained that the rule will force them "to display the pass-through of fees imposed by federal, state, or local government agencies on the consumer broadband label."
That would give potential customers a clearer idea of how much they have to pay each month and save ISPs the trouble of listing every charge that they currently choose to break out separately.
The FCC rules aren't in force yet because they are subject to a federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review under the US Paperwork Reduction Act.
Saved 67% of original text. :::
Why is it sometimes hidden by a dropdown, and sometimes the summary is just in the comment?
TL;DR: The bot is configured to condense certain instances and communities. At the moment, only beehaw.org is marked to be condensed.
Quickly looking at the source code, it seems ReplyToPostsCommand uses a SummaryTextWrapper, which contains an iterable for both CondensedSummaryTextWrapperProvider and DefaultSummaryTextWrapperProvider. The DefaultSummaryTextWrapperProvider has a priority of -1_000 (so it's always checked last) and is set to always return true on the supports(Community $community): bool. CondensedSummaryTextWrapperProvider references the config/services.yaml for it's supports(Community $community): bool call which lists 0 condensed communities and 1 condensed instance, being beehaw.org.
good bot!
Good FCC.
pats head
For those of us not American, can someone explain what fees are root talking about? Isn't it like one fee of $X/month?
Suppose you buy an Internet plan for $50. On your bill, it'll be $50, plus usually 5-10 other fees probably totaling around $5-10. Some examples from my cell phone bill are
That's 7 additional fees, whose names vary from somewhat comprehensible to uselessly vague. And you won't find these prices until you get your bill. They're not advertised directly, instead you'll see that $50 advertised price, and a little asterisk that points to tiny text "additional fees may apply" that somehow make this all legal.
The FCC is saying if telcoms are going to add all these fees, they need to be part of the ad and not hidden.
This is about "fees" over and above the advertised "price". So it says your plan is $65/month, but when you get your bill it's actually $95 because there's a "Cost Recovery Fee", a "Network Maintenance Fee", and a "Municipal Area Surcharge" (IIRC all real fees I've paid on an internet bill) on top of the advertised rate. They're often meant to look like taxes, but they aren't.
Fun fact: taking a sum is an O(n) time operation, as is listing reasonably short numbers.
It's all going to be fabricated bullshit anyhow, I don't see why they don't just lump it all under one bullshit fee and call it a day. They're still going to rob people blind with or without this.
Hahaha epic
fun times