Surcharges piling up on telephone bills

Sacramento Bee ^ | January 22, 2016 | Jim Miller

[artichokegrower]

If your monthly cellphone or landline bills seem higher these days, take a look at the state surcharges.

Since the fall, California phone bills have included almost 8 percent in telecommunication surcharges, the highest in nearly 30 years.

[stylin19a]

I went magic jack...no fees. 5 years service for 99 bucks.

[dragnet2]

It's crap like this which made me switch to a prepaid Track phone.

Bingo, we are just about to make that same decision. We have reached a point where we just don't need all this wizbang latest smart phone garbage. It's become like cable tv, just too expensive.

[al baby]

I think those were started as W phones

[al baby]

Lauren Green?

[goldstategop]

I ditched the landline phone years ago.

I’m deaf and my only communication line is a relay call service via Sprint which is always free.

And I have various IM clients installed on my computer.

Being completely deaf, cutting the landline phone cord saves me $30 a month.

All I pay for now is a data line of $25 a month for Internet access.

[sneakers]

That’s exactly what we did. We have no cell service where we live so we use Tracfones for our cell phones and we have an Ooma for home use. And, yes, our bill went up to $4.24 here as well. The initial cost for the Ooma was well worth it.

[Calvin Locke]

Re: Spanish-American War "temporary" tax

Wasn't that finally removed?

The problem is that legislatures had prohibited the itemization of most taxes on bills to ensure the LIV remains ignorant of the corruption and waste.

[sportutegrl]

I have the Verizon More Everything family plan. Cost: $40/line + data for smartphones. When you go off contract, (bring or buy your own phone), the price drops to $15 per line. But I noticed that the taxes and fees went down also: from 8.80 per line to 5.20 per line. For four lines, this adds up. So one way to avoid taxes, apparently is to bring your phone.

[central_va]

Is that $15 + data?

[Yaelle]

We have ATT family, for 5 soon to be 6 family members. It’s so pricy. But three of us have grandfathered in free data. We are stuck. We all use phones far more for data than voice.

[RedWhiteBlue]

We use Tracfone as well, and just buy 60 minutes every 90 days. Online (or buying through the phone itself) it is $19.99 and with surcharges it comes out to $22.83. However, if you go to a store and just buy the 60 minute gift card for $19.99, then there are no surcharges.

[Vendome]

Works for me...

She’s hot and never met Laz...

[Jack Hydrazine]

Maybe we’re using those phone taxes to still pay off debt from WWI!

[minnesota_bound]

My $30 even T-Mobile bill went up $35.48 this past bill.
This is what increase. All from gov’t taxes!
Federal and State Universal Service Fund
Federal and State USF
Regulatory Program Fees
Sales tax

[sportutegrl]

Yes. Bring your own phone. Data costs 64 for 10 g.

[central_va]

Data costs 64 for 10 g.

could you explain that?

[sportutegrl]

I buy 10 gigs of data for my family of 4, then add $15 for each line. We share the data. Bought our phones separately. We get a discount on data according to my bill, the regular cost is 80, but my bill shows a 17% ‘access discount’ for a charge of $64 for 10 gigs of data + 4 X 15 per line = 124 + $20 (taxes & fees)=$150/4 = About $37/line per month.