3 ms·

I don’t have any sympathy for telecos. But… it is difficult. For example, the city school district in my city, whose boundaries are not congruous with the city

I don’t have any sympathy for telecos. But… it is difficult. For example, the city school district in my city, whose boundaries are not congruous with the city boundaries has an excise tax on different classes of wireless service. These types of rules may have unintended consequences, for example requiring that you collect a street address before providing pricing. It also may encourage telcos like TMobile, who embeds fees in rates to be more AT&T-like “executive retreat recovery surcharge”.

nix0n 3y ago
> These types of rules may have unintended consequences, for example requiring that you collect a street address before providing pricing. They already do this. In fact, they will collect your street address before informing you whether they've run fiber to any part of your ZIP (postal) code.
- mjevans 3y ago
  They should be REQUIRED to provide service if they take an address and make an OFFER of plans.
Arrath 3y ago
If they can figure out what to charge me by the time they send me a bill, they damn well can provide a detailed breakdown of the charges. Claims of it being too hard should be derided as the utter bullshit they are.
p0ckets 3y ago
According to the article: "all charges that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government." So they wouldn't need to include your school excise tax. If they charge different fees depending on address (again, not taxes) then it seems like the intended effect to provide the actual price the consumer will pay.
- morgannewman 3y ago
  This does not match my understanding, but I am not an expert. You receiving those charges is not mandated by the government; rather, passing them through to the consumer is entirely discretionary and often done by ISPs or cell carriers. The article discussed this with the suggestion that ISPs instead simply roll it into the base rate if they do not wish to have to advertise the additional fees. This is exactly what T-Mobile does for their cell phone plans and I love it.
armada651 3y ago
It is the telcos choice to bill regional fees directly to the consumer. They can also amortize regional fees across all their customers, meaning some may pay more while some may pay less.
- clhodapp 3y ago
  That's true to a degree but it does create weird incentives where a municipality could charge a crazy-high tax and have the cost get amortized such that the bulk of it is paid for by people who live outside of their jurisdiction.

nix0n 3y ago

> These types of rules may have unintended consequences, for example requiring that you collect a street address before providing pricing. They already do this. In fact, they will collect your street address before informing you whether they've run fiber to any part of your ZIP (postal) code.

mjevans 3y ago
They should be REQUIRED to provide service if they take an address and make an OFFER of plans.

Arrath 3y ago

If they can figure out what to charge me by the time they send me a bill, they damn well can provide a detailed breakdown of the charges. Claims of it being too hard should be derided as the utter bullshit they are.

p0ckets 3y ago

According to the article: "all charges that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government." So they wouldn't need to include your school excise tax. If they charge different fees depending on address (again, not taxes) then it seems like the intended effect to provide the actual price the consumer will pay.

morgannewman 3y ago
This does not match my understanding, but I am not an expert. You receiving those charges is not mandated by the government; rather, passing them through to the consumer is entirely discretionary and often done by ISPs or cell carriers. The article discussed this with the suggestion that ISPs instead simply roll it into the base rate if they do not wish to have to advertise the additional fees. This is exactly what T-Mobile does for their cell phone plans and I love it.

armada651 3y ago

It is the telcos choice to bill regional fees directly to the consumer. They can also amortize regional fees across all their customers, meaning some may pay more while some may pay less.

clhodapp 3y ago
That's true to a degree but it does create weird incentives where a municipality could charge a crazy-high tax and have the cost get amortized such that the bulk of it is paid for by people who live outside of their jurisdiction.