ISPs Created So Many Fees That FCC Will Kill Requirement To List Them All (arstechnica.com) 110
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says Internet service providers shouldn't have to list every fee they charge. From a report: Responding to a request from cable and telecom lobby groups, he is proposing to eliminate a rule that requires ISPs to itemize various fees in broadband price labels that must be made available to consumers.
The rule took effect in April 2024 after the FCC rejected ISPs' complaints that listing every fee they created would be too difficult. The rule applies specifically to recurring monthly fees "that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government."
ISPs could comply with the rule either by listing the fees or by dropping the fees altogether and, if they choose, raising their overall prices by a corresponding amount. But the latter option wouldn't fit with the strategy of enticing customers with a low advertised price and hitting them with the real price on their monthly bills. The broadband price label rules were created to stop ISPs from advertising misleadingly low prices.
This week, Carr scheduled an October 28 vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes eliminating several of the broadband-label requirements. One of the rules in line for removal requires ISPs to "itemize state and local passthrough fees that vary by location." The FCC would seek public comment on the plan before finalizing it.
The rule took effect in April 2024 after the FCC rejected ISPs' complaints that listing every fee they created would be too difficult. The rule applies specifically to recurring monthly fees "that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government."
ISPs could comply with the rule either by listing the fees or by dropping the fees altogether and, if they choose, raising their overall prices by a corresponding amount. But the latter option wouldn't fit with the strategy of enticing customers with a low advertised price and hitting them with the real price on their monthly bills. The broadband price label rules were created to stop ISPs from advertising misleadingly low prices.
This week, Carr scheduled an October 28 vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes eliminating several of the broadband-label requirements. One of the rules in line for removal requires ISPs to "itemize state and local passthrough fees that vary by location." The FCC would seek public comment on the plan before finalizing it.
Truly an impossible task (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truly an impossible task (Score:5, Insightful)
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So a web store or advertisement, or a search engine, could not advertise price, or e.g. sort results by price, unless you revealed your location first.
And national TV ads would be, I guess, unable to state a price.
Not much different than if say Amazon were required to advertise only prices including sales tax, except at least there are only 50 of those (I think?) For cable it's every city.
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Re: Truly an impossible task (Score:2)
What? This is about third-party pass-thru fees, outside the control ofvthecISPs:
We propose to eliminate the requirement that providers itemize discretionary, recurring monthly fees that represent costs they choose to pass through to consumers and which vary by consumer location," Carr's draft proposal said. "Examples include state and local right of way fees, pole rental fees to utility companies, and other discretionary charges where the provider does not set rates or terms directly. We seek comment on whether providers should instead display on the label the aggregate amount of such fees."
They simply want to add up all the stupid charges they have no control over as one simple line item - it's not really that big a deal.
I'm old enough to remember when Congress passed a law that taxes ISPs so that politicians could get some money to spend on their pet projects. The ISPs retaliated by listing the taxes on every bill, and lawmakers got upset and tried to block the ISPs from enumerating the taxes imposed on them.
The
Re: Truly an impossible task (Score:5, Insightful)
They simply want to add up all the stupid charges they have no control over as one simple line item - it's not really that big a deal.
That is quite the biased interpretation you made there.
The ISPs have total control over their charges. There is no requirement that cost-of-doing-business be passed on to customers as additional fees. ISPs are free to set their rates sufficient to cover their costs + profits just as every other business does.
I own a business. I charge my customers the price I have chosen for my goods. I pay all of the costs of operating my business out of the price that I charge. I do not itemize each transaction as price + [electricity for my shop fee] + [rent for my shop fee] + [salary for my employees fee] + [janitorial services fee] + [etc.] The only fee I break out from the item prices is the Sales Tax (which I am required by law to show.)
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Some of these ISP charges ARE like Sales Tax - and a home on one side of the street in a different city will pay a different "telecommunications tax" rate than a home directly on the other side of the street. In some cases, crossing the street even puts you in a different state with very different taxes. Since people generally don't share the precise coordinates of their service address when visiting a web site, an ISP has no idea what fees will be when they advertise a price even in a targeted ad. For "bro
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A valid point... when discussing advertising. The article was not about advertising.
The article was about a requirement to itemize fees added to the bill as opposed to lumping them together as "unspecified fees".
-The ISP argument (per the article) is that it is too complicated to itemize the fees they are charging.
-The counter argument is that if they can figure out what to charge, they can itemize it on the bill.
My post (which you replied to) was about the difference between Taxes and Fees.
-Where I live,
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A valid point... when discussing advertising. The article was not about advertising.
Broadband labels are required to be presented at the point of sale.
The article was about a requirement to itemize fees added to the bill as opposed to lumping them together as "unspecified fees".
The NPRM is proposing wholesale elimination of such requirements not changing presentation.
"We propose to eliminate the requirement that providers itemize discretionary, recurring
monthly fees that represent costs they choose to pass through to consumers and which vary by consumer location. Examples include state and local right of way fees, pole rental fees to utility companies, and other discretionary charges where the provider does not set
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Well, I know that when the fiber providers prospect me, they need my street address to do so. And while none serve my address yet, another story of failure and abuse, if they did, they would have the necessary information to quote me an accurate price.
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They simply want to add up all the stupid charges they have no control over as one simple line item - it's not really that big a deal.
Its not a big deal to just list them either. If they have the ability add them all up, they have the ability to list them all.
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They simply want to add up all the stupid charges they have no control over as one simple line item - it's not really that big a deal.
I disagree with this interpretation. Here is the full text of the relevant statement:
"We propose to eliminate the requirement that providers itemize discretionary, recurring monthly fees that represent costs they choose to pass through to consumers and which vary by consumer location. Examples include state and local right of way fees, pole rental fees to utility companies, and other discretionary charges where the provider does not set rates or terms directly.
We seek comment on whether providers should in
Re: Truly an impossible task (Score:2)
All business taxes are passed on to the customer or the employer
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Re:Truly an impossible task (Score:4, Informative)
"Although then every single tax jurisdiction - city, county, state, and federal - must have a different ad."
Boo hoo. How can any company compete!
"So a web store or advertisement, or a search engine, could not advertise price, or e.g. sort results by price, unless you revealed your location first."
Oh, definitely a problem never seen before!
"And national TV ads would be, I guess, unable to state a price."
Then don't.
"Not much different than if say Amazon were required to advertise only prices including sales tax, except at least there are only 50 of those (I think?) For cable it's every city."
And? Who thinks Amazon should have special treatment.
Everything you said is predicated on an assumption that it should be easy for companies to lie to consumers. Wonder what you do for a living?
Re:Truly an impossible task (Score:5, Informative)
Also this itemization rule only came about because those same ISP's abused the fees to such a degree that the FCC had to act, everyone was pissed, this didn't come out of nowhere.
The FCC even gave a potential solution:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
ISPs object to a portion of the FCC order that says, "providers must list all recurring monthly fees" including "all charges that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government." The five trade groups complain that this would require ISPs "to display the pass-through of fees imposed by federal, state, or local government agencies on the consumer broadband label."
But just because an ISP says a fee is related to a government charge doesn't mean that ISPs have to break them out separately. ISPs could instead include all costs in their advertised rates to give potential customers a clearer idea of how much they would have to pay each month.
"A provider that opts to combine all of its monthly discretionary fees with its base monthly price may do so and list that total price. In that case, the provider need not separately itemize those fees in the label," the FCC order said.
Re:Truly an impossible task (Score:4, Informative)
Although then every single tax jurisdiction - city, county, state, and federal - must have a different ad.
State and local taxes, being a "charge... mandated by a government", are specifically exempt from the rule. The average person is aware that advertised prices don't include sales tax and, perhaps more importantly, a person can find out from a different source (e.g. the government) what the sales tax is, so there won't be surprising extra charges.
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I was replying to a post that proposes to not do that. It proposes, "you must show the *total* price."
Re: Truly an impossible task (Score:2)
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State and local taxes, being a "charge... mandated by a government", are specifically exempt from the rule.
Not all mandated fees are non-discretionary. If the government puts a cap on a fee, the cable company starts calling it a mandated fee.
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Not necessarily, just list cost "Up To" the highest price that could be applied.
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Although then every single tax jurisdiction - city, county, state, and federal - must have a different ad.
All they have to do is have some copy up front that says "As low as 19.99!*"
And then have some fine print at the bottom: "* Final price may vary depending on local tariffs" or whatever legalize the lawyers come up with. The ISP version of "prices and participation may vary".
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Thats just the downside to running a giant company that operates in many jurisdictions. Maybe they should have thought about this "problem" before they went on a merger spree.
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Nope.
"sales tax, except at least there are only 50 of those"
Where I live, in Arizona, sales tax is called Transaction Privilege Tax. Side note, it doesn't get much more offensive than that, 'privilege'.
And these are set at each city or town. In the Phoenix area, that is at least 22 jurisdictions, each permitted to set their own TPT rates, and then Maricopa county unincorporated areas with another rate, Zip code generally suffices to determine what rate to charge.
Imagine that happening in only a few other s
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One must wonder why there's a need for many fees at all.. and there aren't, of course. As someone who doesn't live in the US, my ISP bill has a single number: A fixed number, the price I pay for 1Gb/1Gb per month. That was the advertised price, that's what's on my bill, and the only additional writing on the bill is that N percent of that is VAT (Value Added Tax).
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It's really not that hard to enforce the intention of the rule... Change the rule to require that the total price with all fees must be the largest number shown on any advertisement. If they want to show the breakdown of the fees in a smaller font, fine... But you must show the *total* price. And that must be the largest font on the ad.
This kind of thing is not a problem with other countries because many, many, many years ago we codified into law (yes law, not "rules" or "voluntary codes of conduct", actual law) that an advertised price must be the price at which the product can be purchased including all applicable fees, charges, duties, levies and taxes. Basically if you say you widget costs 10 of my finest Pounds, then I can front up with 2 fivers and get your widget.
The same goes for contracts. Any fees or charges must be written i
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This.
If they can't figure this simple thing out, how can I expect them to operate anything as complex as a network?
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They figure it out just fine when it is time to generate a bill.
Just re-use that code over in the advertising department.
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Idiocracy was a documentary. (Score:3)
Terminator may come true next.
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Demolition Man entered the room.
Partial Fee Payment? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they can't list to me what the fee is, how are they able to collect on it?
So if I pay for the actual service provided, then include $.01 extra toward the fees, how do they know which fee I did not complete payment for? In theory, if I ask them to provide which fees I didn't fulfill payment for, they would be unable to do so.
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That's not exactly how billing works. Regardless of how they get there, you owe $63.01 and you paid $60. You have a balance of $3.01. They don't really care what wasn't paid in particular. It's a balance due.
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If I am paying a fee for some purpose, how would I be able to check if I am getting what I paid for if I don't even know how much I am paying for each purpose?
Re: Partial Fee Payment? (Score:2)
That really has nothing to do with anything we're talking about here.
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Ok, comcast.
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If they can't list to me what the fee is, how are they able to collect on it?
They can list to you what the fees are. They can't necessarily list to [arbitrary person known by only a zip code] what the fees are, and doubly so to [arbitrary person known only by a 30-mile radius].
Of course, if they were being honest, they could say for $39.99 + $10.99 or less in taxes and surcharges and give a maximum price. Nobody is going to complain if the price turns out to be cheaper.
Great, I Hate Knowing What I'm Paying For! (Score:4, Funny)
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Kind of like what the food industry has become.
Switch to 5G internet if you can (Score:4, Informative)
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Market access is the only way to rein in these blood suckers
FTFY
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Oh, and seeing the proliferation of fiber providers just in my Arizona town, but still exclusivity within the neighborhoods they are permitted to pull fiber through, competitive access is still somewhat a dream. They will of course compete against the incumbent cable providers, and the fixed wireless providers, so it's not all bad.
Which fees? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The rule applies specifically to recurring monthly fees "that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government."
In other words, whenver the company feels like it needs more ROI, and adds made-up fees.
LONG past time to reregulate the industry. Heavily.
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If we had real consumer protection, any fee that is mandatory and doesn't vary based on regional/state/federal law is disallowed. It's just the base price. If their billing practices were under the FTC's purview, I don't think it would have ever gotten this bad. Nobody else is allowed to do this.
Not cause and effect (Score:4, Insightful)
The headline reads:
ISPs Created So Many Fees That FCC Will Kill Requirement To List Them All
This implies that the number of fees is a reason for the proposed requirements change. The number has nothing to do with the proposal, rather, the attitude of the new leadership of the FCC, is entirely responsible for the change. The new FCC wants to cater to (right-leaning) businesses, even if it screws the people. It's as simple as that.
Re:Not cause and effect (Score:4, Insightful)
"The new FCC wants to cater to (right-leaning) businesses..."
So just businesses then. And I don't agree, the "new FCC" wants to cater to one side of identity politics so they make decisions explicitly to screw customers.
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So just businesses then
How about Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Elon Musk (Tesla) or Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp / Fox). Those are not small businesses, but they are right-leaning.
Broadband labels already suck (Score:2)
The way the labels are structured is already misleading. Top line price can either be an introductory rate or normal rate and you have to do added gymnastics to consider the added charges, discounts..etc on top of that. They are also too rigid leaving ISPs to dump important details in external URLs.
If you allow ISPs to itemize arbitrary costs of doing business and leave them out of the charges and terms section of labels they become less than worthless. No information at all is better than an overt lie.
Excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy way or the hard way (Score:4, Insightful)
The FCC chairman could tell the lobbyist to take a hike. Tell them that "we can do it the easy way or the hard way".
But that sort of thing cuts down bribes.. sorry, donations to him and his team.
The tough guy act is reserved only for silencing the critics of the Humpty Dumpty president.
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Just charge rge advertisted price? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they just charged the advertised price, then we wouldn't need to this sort of regulation.For this reason, the problem isn't all the fees, but the fact that they are allowed to add on fees, outside of the advertised price. In addition to this, any price increase should be communicated in advance and before the minimum cancellation window.
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What is this crap? (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like the US ISP market is completely broken. You know what fees I pay here (Europe)? Two. One is for the fibber and the speed, the second on is for a static IP, which I find beneficial for some things. No other fees whatsoever.
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Tmobile had, for a long time, a flat fee that included all taxes. No fees at all. These can be easily done, but they make it harder to screw customers. That is all this is about, the US has a fascist party in power now, this is what fascists do. Everything is to benefit corporations and the state.
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They still do! At least for me anyway. I can't speak as to what anyone else is paying.
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Depends on who you go to I guess. I use T-Mobile for home internet service.
My ISP advertised $50/month, no bullshit. So I signed up.
I pay $50/month, no bullshit.
My current bill looks like this:
Regular Charges, Sept 19-Oct 20: $50.00
Total Due: $50.00
I mean....it doesn't get much more simple than that.
For phone service, I use US Mobile. Their bill is almost as simple. It looks like this:
Unlimited Minutes and Text: $8.00
Service Fee: $2.00
Recovery Fee: $2.48
Total Due: $12.48
Yeah, those $4.48 in fees is annoying
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Ok, so it depends on how much the service provider wants to hide that they are screwing you. Got it. Would probably get customer protection involved here. Not that some Telcos try to pull other shit in Europe as well.
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I don't feel my ISP or my mobile phone company are screwing me, especially the phone company. I mean, fuck. Under $12.50/month. How little do the have to charge to NOT be screwing me?
As for T-Mobile.....$50/month is pretty damned reasonable. That's what....somewhere around $1.50/day? For all the internet I want? How fucking cheap is it supposed to be?
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You mistake my meaning. Not wanting to screw you is also a degree of wanting to screw you. It is just zero. Not that I believe that for a moment, that is not how economics graduates think. But the ones you buy from may just have made that a secondary goal because they realized that making a good offer actually gets them more business. That may last or not.
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I guess it depends on the definition of "screw" that one uses. We probably wouldn't agree on one.
In any case, nothing lasts forever. I don't remember how long we have had tmobile, but I think it has been around 3 years. In that time, there have been no price increases, no surprise fees, no significant outages that I can recall, no real dissatisfactions of any kind.
Wife broke the power connector once. T-Mobile could have legitimately made us pay for that, but they didn't. They just swapped out our router fo
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Sounds like the US ISP market is completely broken. You know what fees I pay here (Europe)? Two. One is for the fibber and the speed, the second on is for a static IP, which I find beneficial for some things. No other fees whatsoever.
Why are you paying for a liar?
(yeah, I know you mean fibre, just couldn't resist a cheap joke).
I suspect that your country, like most civilised countries has laws that state the price on the contract is the final price and must include all applicable fees, taxes and charges.
The US doesn't like that system as hiding the real price behind fees and charges makes them think they're still an affordable country to live in because the advertised price is still low, however they always pay more than the ad
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I suspect that your country, like most civilised countries has laws that state the price on the contract is the final price and must include all applicable fees, taxes and charges.
It does. I would go so far that a country that does not have this is not fully civilized.
Imagine our shock (Score:2)
Brendan Carr has the balls of the oligarchy resting on his chin, so this latest betrayal of Americans is not at all surprising. It's just business as usual.
Usual, that is, for a newly-minted Fascist regime. Give it a few years, and the mere notion that consumers might have any say in how they're treated, or any recourse against injustice, will be a quaint and distant memory.
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Consumers haven't had a say in a long time. It's been so long since companies had functional support many adults do not even realize it. Call screening became pervasive decades ago. There is never recourse for the small guy, only now lying about prices is fair game too.
work is too difficult (Score:2)
"listing every fee they created would be too difficult."
Difficult how? Making lists is not difficult.
If they were honest all the fees would be listed as:
$3.99 - fee type: money grab
$0.95 - fee type: money grab
$0.10 - fee type: lets make billions of dollars
$10.99 - fee type: executive yachts fund contribution
$1.00 - fee type: executive yachts fund contribution fee
Bullshitting customers is easy: get ChatGPT to make up the fees. How hard is that?
But it's easier to get Brendan Carr to get rid of any regulation
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Reticulating splines...
De-MOCK-racy (Score:2)
Percent of consumers for this: 5%
Percent of plutocrats for this: 99%
Re:77 million americans voted for this (Score:5, Informative)
Because they were tricked into believing Kamala would cut their children's genitals off and/or eat their pets.
American's are fucking dumb. Religion tells them to use their gut and "faith" instead of actually checking shit!
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Correction: "Americans", no apostrophe.
Americans cant punctuate.
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77 million americans voted for this so they're getting what they want, let them have it.
As much as I don't give a fuck if those voting for trump get screwed as a result, the remaining 263 million Americans are NOT getting what they want. Can we not consider them?
Brendan Carr (Score:2)
Big round of applause for Trump lackey, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Misleading Title After Reading Further (Score:2)
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That's not what the article actually says. Direct cut-and-paste:
"We propose to eliminate the requirement that providers itemize discretionary, recurring monthly fees that represent costs they choose to pass through to consumers and which vary by consumer location," Carr's draft proposal said. "Examples include state and local right of way fees, pole rental fees to utility companies, and other discretionary charges where the provider does not set rates or terms directly."
"discretionary charges where the prov
monopolies can already charge whatever they want (Score:2)
Yes, the practice of advertising a base price that is impossible to obtain because of "mandatory" fees is ridiculous, and exactly why the FCC made this rule in the first place. And ISPs should not be singled out here; any business that charges an amount different than advertised other than by sales tax should be slapped with a heavy false advertising fine. Caving to oligarchies and lobbies to repeal this rule should inflame everyone, but then again it's just par for the course.
But all that said, in huge
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Then don't list any fees, we don't care. (Score:3)
Billing (Score:2)
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Australia (Score:2)
In Australia, the retail price you see is the price you pay.
The USA has become a distopian corpratoctracy where the government (on both sides) serves oligopolies.
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Yep, this makes the US of A look stupid as hell. The ISPs want to fuck you plain and simple. Luckily there is a fiber ISP that arrived in my home town about two years ago. The price advertised is the price paid, and as a bonus, it's half of what the cable monopoly wants. Our government is full of ass clowns on both sides of the aisle. I refuse to claim either one of them.
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Its almost as though consumer protection laws protect consumers...
Stupid fees (Score:2)
They don't want to list the fees because so many of them are stupid. Imagine:
1. CEO fellatio fee: $2.95 ...
2. CEO bonus contribution: $2.50
3. C-suite lunch fee: $1.50
4. Political lobbying fee: $2.00
5. Arbitration retainer fee: $1.00
misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
I care about the total monthy cost not the fees (Score:3)
The American way of doing things is to advertise the price before all of the fees and taxes. This is totally opaque (by design, I might add)
The easiest way to get a real cost is to submit and sign up, wait for the first bill, and then and only then you get to see the true cost. Trying to piece it together is bordering on an exercise in futility. I could almost argue that you are wasting your own time (depending upon how you value it by trying to get to the bottom of all the taxes and fees) You just need to make sure the contract is month-to-month so you can cancel it if you think the taxes and fees are unreasonable.
Maybe a progressive state such as California could require complete disclosure of the total monthly cost at sign-up, since they should have all of the information at the end of the sign-up process to determine this.
I think all of this boils down to American Culture, and the fact that Americans don't seem to care as much on the bottom line costs compared to the rest of the world.
American consumers just don't signal that transparent pricing is high on their priority list.
Americans pay sales taxes and don't have the final price at their fingertips without using a calculator. This is presumably so one can figure out how much tax they are paying for an item, but I think the real reason is to make the cost not seem so high when they're deciding whether to purchase the item or not.
The Europeans pay value added tax on goods sols, and the price tag shows the price they will pay when they pay for it. This is the preferred system. 100% price transparency.
Standard Bait and Switch (Score:2)
This is bog standard Bait and Switch: advertise a lower price, charge a higher one, with fees.
In this case, the government is merely explicitly legalizing it.
Personal note: I had my preference in the presidential campaign but also realized each side would come with its own costs and benefits. One cost of the current administration is they seem exceptionally partial to white collar crime and shady business behavior.
"Gotcha capitalism" (Score:1)
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Is that a justification? Or are you just explaining that MAGA doesn't care about consequences, only about winning?
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Nothing is perfect. Nobody ever gets everything they want. No two people agree 100% of the time. That's life.
If you wanted Harris to win, I guarantee you she would h
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That's a very roundabout way of saying "The ends justify the means."
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Neither would have any of the other anti-consumer policy changes that are liable to financially molest you.
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So you enjoy getting fucked on a regular basis?
I wish I were. I would definitely enjoy it.
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I don't like this decision, but knowing about it in advance would not have changed my vote.
Nor mine.
Each thing getting chipped away in small amounts, but cumulatively the worst thing that's ever happened to the country.
Honestly, this doesn't matter even slightly to me. As long as it is *only* government fees that we're talking about, there is no real difference between showing $x in government fees and showing a list of smaller fees. The important part is requiring that they disclose the final total, including the fees.
The only people who care about which specific government fees are involved are the Republicans looking for ways to reduce taxes. So arguably, from the left's perspective, this is is an improvement, becau
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But don't think Americans are "tricked" into distrusting the government. That's a strong thread going all the way back to the mid 18th century. The i