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Local Phone Services: After: What you should know About Your Phone BillsYou were told your phone service would cost $19.99 per month and yet you're looking at a bill for $43. Are you confused about how all these charges added up? The fees and charges on your bill can easily catch you off guard. Here is a list explaining what the charges are and to whom that extra money is going:
This is the cost of unlimited calling in your local calling area without any optional services (such as call waiting). The local calling area is defined differently in different states and for different providers. You can usually look in the white pages of your phone directory to determine your local calling area.
Measured rate service charges on a per call or per minute basis, usually with a monthly minimum fee.
If you are billed for both local and long distance service on one bill, you may be charged a fee for this convenience. Consumers who do not want to pay this charge should contact their long distance company and ask for a separate bill.
These are charges for calls made outside of your local calling area, but within a region known as your "extended calling area."
This is a three percent tax imposed by the federal government.
This fee is charged by local governments to help fund emergency services such as fire and rescue.
The USF helps make phone service affordable and available to everyone, including schools, libraries, consumers with low incomes, rural health care providers, and those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high. All telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to this fund. Many companies pass these costs on to consumers in the form of a line item fee. Your bill may also include an additional state fee for universal service.
After the 1984 break-up of AT&T, the FCC authorized this fee to pay for local phone network costs when long distance calls are made. You pay the flat fee whether you make a few long distance calls or many. The FCC does not allow phone companies to assess a Subscriber Line Charge of more than $6.50 for a single line. Consumers with more than one line can be charged an additional subscriber line charge. The FCC refers to these additional lines as "non-primary" and the cap on the Subscriber Line Charge for "non-primary" lines is $7.00 per line, at least until June 30, 2005.
When, without moving, you switch local phone companies you can keep your phone number. You can also transfer your home number to a wireless phone in most places. This charge allows local phone companies to recoup for the cost of this number service. It is a fixed, monthly fee. Local telephone companies may continue to assess this charge on customers' telephone bills. The fee was supposed to expire after five years, but federal regulators recently granted an extension to phone companies.
This charge helps to pay for the relay center that sends and translates calls for the hearing and speech-impaired.
Certain phone companies consolidate charges associated with government programs into one fee called a "Regulatory Programs Fee." This is not a tax or government required charge. Since some companies are not specific as to exactly what this fee covers, we advise you to call your phone company for clarification of this fee.
This charge is similar to the federal subscriber line charge. It is a charge mandated by some state public utility commissions to pay for the local phone network, effectively raising monthly rates.
State and local taxes will vary depending upon where you live. If you have a question about a certain tax assessed, you can contact your state public utility commission or the taxing jurisdiction in question to find out more. Some states even have representative phone bills online, with an explanation of the state and local tax calculations. Be sure that your billing address is up to date to ensure that you aren't being taxed by the wrong jurisdiction. Some state and local fees (e.g., 911 Surcharges, Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Charge) are discussed above, while other state and local fees (e.g., State Universal Service Fund) are similar to the federal fees described above.
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