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ISPs’ long nightmare of having to list all the fees they charge is finally over

AceGoober said:
We have to list our income and all that jazz on IRS long-form but the ISPs can't list what they are dinging customers for? Complete and utter bullshit.
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Its like food labeling where they can label most ingredients, but leave other things vague like "spices" and do not need to note what is in said "spices" , even though they will list out most other spices and things..

"its too hard"..claim the companies..
 
Prince Valiant said:
Much like the rest of them. Makes for a good laugh when people suggest voting our way out of anything.
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Yup, when you see the back and forth of people moving from corps, to the FCC, or vice versa, same with other entities that are "supposed" to protect the consumer. One that comes to mind is the Heart and Stroke foundation and you see who the donor's are, or Cancer groups, and the companies "donating" to them, are literally the cause of some of the illnesses..
 
Grateful for our municipal broadband. Comcast spent millions lobbying against it but failed, thankfully.

The fleecing will continue as long as half of America is too distracted by bullshit culture war nonsense to demand effective government.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
Grateful for our municipal broadband. Comcast spent millions lobbying against it but failed, thankfully.

The fleecing will continue as long as half of America is too distracted by bullshit culture war nonsense to demand effective government.
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This, and when you vote people into power, who then go off and put others into positions that they frankly have no business being in..
 
MrGuvernment said:
Too hard..

Yet on their backend, they know exactly what ever fee is for...just do not want it to be public knowledge of how they are screwing every customer...

FCC, working for the corporations..
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What he said.

Another way the gummint is "lowering the cost of living." :confused:
 
MrGuvernment said:
Yup, when you see the back and forth of people moving from corps, to the FCC, or vice versa, same with other entities that are "supposed" to protect the consumer.
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Regulatory Capture. The goal of every regulated industry. Latest example is crypto.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Does that mean ISPs will now have to list how much it will actually cost you for their service when shopping around? Or is showing the price before all taxes, fees and recouping "too hard for my wittle multibillion dollar company to do"??
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They do not have to show it, so they can advertise say "$69.99 1Gb Internet" - but then once you dig and sign up, you can suddenly find the price higher, say $83.45 after tax and fees....

With this change, ISPs can continue advertising inaccurate prices as long as they provide the total amount of passthrough fees on broadband price labels. Separating these costs from the advertised price makes it harder for consumers to find out what they will pay each month, and gives ISPs another method of raising customer bills without announcing a price increase.
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MrGuvernment said:
Its like food labeling where they can label most ingredients, but leave other things vague like "spices" and do not need to note what is in said "spices" , even though they will list out most other spices and things..

"its too hard"..claim the companies..
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At least in these circumstances they can make the (admittedly weak) argument that they are protecting their proprietary recipes.

Not listing fees lacks even the thinnest excuse.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
Grateful for our municipal broadband. Comcast spent millions lobbying against it but failed, thankfully.

The fleecing will continue as long as half of America is too distracted by bullshit culture war nonsense to demand effective government.
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You are lucky. Every city and town should have municipal broadband, and we should drive these ISP sleazebags out of business.

They are one of the most abusive industries in existence, worse - IMHO - than the proverbial used car salesman.

In my town we have the second best solution to municipal broadband. Something unheard of in the ISP business.

At my address I actually have four separate land based ISP's competing for my business. Verizon Fios, Xfinity (Comcast), Astound (RCN), Earthlink (Essentially a fiber equivalent to MVNO's using Verizon's infrastructure, but they remain competitive)

This makes my situation better than in most of the country where people have to deal with a monopoly and the abuses that implies, but I'd still give it all up for actual municipal broadband without any hesitation. They are still sleazy, just slightly less so, and I am sure that after this ruling they will become even more so.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You are lucky. Every city and town should have municipal broadband, and we should drive these ISP sleazebags out of business.

They are one of the most abusive industries in existence, worse - IMHO - than the proverbial used car salesman.

In my town we have the second best solution to municipal broadband. Something unheard of in the ISP business.

At my address I actually have four separate land based ISP's competing for my business. Verizon Fios, Xfinity (Comcast), Astound (RCN), Earthlink (Essentially a fiber equivalent to MVNO's using Verizon's infrastructure, but they remain competitive)

This makes my situation better than in most of the country where people have to deal with a monopoly and the abuses that implies, but I'd still give it all up for actual municipal broadband without any hesitation. They are still sleazy, just slightly less so, and I am sure that after this ruling they will become even more so.
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It would probably be worse, especially if you are out of the city limits. But I get where you're coming from.
 
Does that mean we're getting rid of these nice labels ISP's have been doing? I really like them:
1784851336436.png
 
MrGuvernment said:
They do not have to show it, so they can advertise say "$69.99 1Gb Internet" - but then once you dig and sign up, you can suddenly find the price higher, say $83.45 after tax and fees....
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So what exactly changed then because that it was companies like Comcast always did.

The irony about that is if you try to find what is available you have to put in your exact address, so it shouldnt be "too hard" to show you the actual price, they just dont want to.

Oh well, I'm happy for my Sonic, 10Gbps fiber, no tiers you are getting fiber so you get what you get, no fuss, $50/month
 
When I was signing up for internet, they told me how much I will be paying. When my first bill came, it was exactly what I negotiated over the phone. Eventually, discounts started to dry up after two years. I decided to call back and cancel or re-negotiate favorable price. After several hours and several representatives, we both agreed on the rice I liked. When the bill came, it was exactly what we negotiated.

It probably won't matter to me if they describe or not the fees they collect, as long as they are all tallied up and included in agreed service price.
 
are closed said:
. I decided to call back and cancel or re-negotiate favorable price. After several hours and several representatives, we both agreed on the rice I liked. When the bill came, it was exactly what we negotiated.
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Good on you, but why should it be necessary to spend several hours on the phone with a dummy , er, Comcast rep?
 
Gigantopithecus said:
Do you like beer? Odell and New Belgium are both a seven-minute drive from my home.

I pay $70/month for a gig up, a gig down, no data cap, the router, and local (that's 'Murican-speaking) support.
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We have friends who lived on the other side of the corn field from the Budweiser factory up there. The past couple times we went to visit, time wise it looks like before that was rolled out. Looking into it now, I wish we had something like that here. The best we have now is Comcast has finally lost their monopoly in our area. We were supposed to be one of the Google Fiber rollout cities in 2015, but Comcast and ATT fought it tooth and nail. Fast forward 10 years and we just started getting fiber infrastructure put down by ATT and another company last year. We now have three providers to our neighborhood and sure enough Comcast pricing structure entirely changed, increasing speeds across all tiers, no more contracts, and prices on the lower end all dropped.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So what exactly changed then because that it was companies like Comcast always did.

The irony about that is if you try to find what is available you have to put in your exact address, so it shouldnt be "too hard" to show you the actual price, they just dont want to.

Oh well, I'm happy for my Sonic, 10Gbps fiber, no tiers you are getting fiber so you get what you get, no fuss, $50/month
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What happened was that in the past they could and frequently did lie by deception by advertising $XX and not mentioning $Y in double secret probation fees until you got your bill. Rules were changed (IIRC during the Biden admin) to require the label showing a breakdown of all the stupid fees and taxes they charged on top of the headline price. Now thanks to the current admin they can go back to only showing the headline price and lying by deception again.
 
philb2 said:
Good on you, but why should it be necessary to spend several hours on the phone with a dummy , er, Comcast rep?
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Because, eh...money. :(it's the same when you purchase at the dealer. To get a good price, you'll need to spend half a dy there and be prepared to walk away if no budge.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Does that mean ISPs will now have to list how much it will actually cost you for their service when shopping around? Or is showing the price before all taxes, fees and recouping "too hard for my wittle multibillion dollar company to do"??
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? Im confused by your question. Do you not see these nice labels that show all the fees? So I think they CURRENTLY they list all the fees, no? Maybe 10 years ago it was a nightmare trying to compare internet between companies, but then this happened and it was awesome. It's not clear to me if this is going away and we're going back to how it used to be, or what. Example from comcast (my previous example was ATT):
1784908444553.png

1784908466919.png
 
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