Ever wonder what that “FCC Line Charge” is on your phone bill? Did you actually think it was going to the FCC? Think again. The phone company – as if you didn’t already know this – is diddling you. Read this article from Forbes, courtesy of This Is Your Brain on Blog.
While the Bells agreed to chop their access fees, they also won the right to offset that reduction by boosting flat monthly fees charged to local customers. These offsetting fee increases now approach $5 billion a year and, even in a world of telecom deflation, have sent local phone bills climbing. Today customers of Verizon, the biggest of the four surviving Bell companies, see the $72 annual fee–up $30 a year per line so far–listed as the “FCC line charge” on their phone bills, though the Bell gets the cash.
