> They're just unavoidable parts of the service's price that the cable/satellite vendors split off to misrepresent the costs. I worked for a Telco (that also d

> They're just unavoidable parts of the service's price that the cable/satellite vendors split off to misrepresent the costs. I worked for a Telco (that also did Cable TV). The marketing team would literally sit around a conference table and discuss how they were going to raise quarterly revenue by $amount so they would get their bonuses. Someone would suggest a connection fee. Or a disconnection fee. Or a change service fee, increase existing fee, call out fee, paper bill fee, credit card change fee, new equipment fee,..... They really would sit around and invent this stuff purely to increase revenue, because that was the goal.