Bellsouth is increasing the price of FastAccess DSL by $3, but not telling anyone. Since this is just a magic fee, it won’t show up in their advertised rates. Smells pretty dirty to me. Cox Communications wasn’t quite as bad, officially raising the advertised price of Cable Internet from $32.99 to $39.99 over the course of a year, and hence why I have Bellsouth ADSL in the first place.
BellSouth imposes a Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee of $2.97 per month to offset its costs incurred in complying with obligations and charges imposed by state and federal regulatory bodies, including the recovery of the Federal Universal Service Charge, and state regulatory orders affecting broadband. BellSouth’s Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee is not a tax or charge imposed by a government entity.
The Federal Universal Service Charge: All telecommunication service providers are required to contribute to the Federal Universal Service Fund. The universal service fund subsidizes programs for schools, libraries, and health care providers. BellSouth recovers the cost of these contributions through a surcharge on its customers’ bills.
It seems I’m not the only one that finds this fishy and annoying.
Tomorrow I’ll be calling around to see what alternative providers are available, although here I think my only choices are still Bellsouth and Cox. I’m too far away from the Atlantic.net DSLAMs for their Bellsouth-free service.