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Kevin Martin Furious With A Telco?

from the end-times dept

Tue, Aug 29th 2006 9:20am — Carlo Longino

Everything was just going along as usual last week, what with Verizon and BellSouth adding in some sketchy fees to DSL bills that just happened to be about the same amount as the USF recovery fees they'd been allowed to drop. Then, BellSouth dropped its fee, which could be explained by its desire not to cause too much of a stir with its merger with AT&T still waiting to be approved. But things got a little weird when word came that telcos and cable companies had realized that maybe they should treat customers better, and now there's another possible sign of impending apocalypse: FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin is apparently "furious" with a telco (via Broadband Reports). Yes, this is the same Kevin Martin who's never met a big telco he couldn't help out, and now he's said to be pretty upset with Verizon's shifty new fee. It remains to be seen if this anger will actually turn into anything, or if it's just another attempt by the FCC to merely appear concerned. In any case, Verizon execs probably can't wait for December to get here, so they can sing Martin Happy Birthday and return things to normal. Until then, be on the lookout for driverless cars, any undue pestilence or other signals of the end times from the telecom market.

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13 Comments

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nunya_bidness, 29 Aug 2006 @ 9:32am

BS
My BS detector is maxed out.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2006 @ 10:24am

Even the gov does it
gov regulation won't work, though because the gov does it too. In my town, we agreed to a temporary sales tax increase to fund schools. We were told that this way, the property tax would not go up to fund schools. (This, after we already agreed to a lottery, which was supposed to fund schools.) A year or two later, guess what - the property tax went up anyway ecause the schools needed more money. My cynical guess is that they probably will not roll back the sales tax when they are supposed to - they will have some excuse for keeping that money also.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2006 @ 10:26am

Whos Kevin Martin?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2006 @ 12:12pm

OMG APOCOLYPSE
this article and the one before this have SAME NUMBER OF LETTERS, 29!!!!!!!

"Kevin Martin Furious With A Telco?"
"Universal Takes Free Music Plunge"

THE END IS NEAR, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIIEEEE
(lil nicky)
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Jaymes, 29 Aug 2006 @ 12:25pm

Little Fees
Has anyone else been hit by telcos (land line or cell) for little itsy, bitsy charges that are so completely not even worth calling about that you don't?

I've seen this repeatedly and started calling them on it... Problem is they make it so complicated to get a $.05 (five cent) charge reversed that it's truely not worth your while.

Problem continued, if they do this to all reported 50 million of their "in" customers, what's their monthly take for that nickel per person? $2.5 Million!

If this reminds you of a bad Superman movie, you're not alone.

But, how do you fight this? Is this something that can be proven through a class action, maybe?

Anyway, I'm just fishing to see if I'm the only person who really reads his bills...
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2006 @ 1:27pm

But, how do you fight this?
Some of us believe that is what the government should do. But they don't, anymore.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2006 @ 1:29pm

Kevin Martin Furious With A Telco?
Just a lover's spat. They'll kiss and make up soon enough.
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ForkBoySpam, 29 Aug 2006 @ 1:30pm

Re: Little Fees
I'm waiting for a college course offering to teach me how to read my cell bill.
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Mark, 29 Aug 2006 @ 1:56pm

Re: Little Fees
I certainly try to read my bill every month. And after staring at it a bit longer, it occurred to me to divide the total into the price I'm charged for actual service. And I discovered that 46% of my bill is a tax or surcharge of some sort. Lord only knows where that 46 cents out of every dollar goes.

Also, forgiving a bit of drift here, think about whether you can migrate to measured service instead of flat rate local dialing. In this day of post-dialup network access, there is a good chance you can take back some of those fees by pay-as-you go local calling. You may be surprised by how few local calls you actually make every month in this broadband always-on age. I shaved 40% off my bill by moving to measured local instead of flat rate. It was also a pleasure to hear the rep try to talk me out of it, which was a strong indication that they know I'll save money by changing plans. Savings details here
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ButterflyJester, 29 Aug 2006 @ 1:57pm

Just in time...
oh goodie - and I just got my notice from Verizon yesterday that they dropped the USF fee but added a new fee so that my bill will remain "about the same or slightly less than" before.
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Agonizing Fury, 29 Aug 2006 @ 3:39pm

Re: Just in time...
You think that's bad, my phone company (Coastal Communications) still has not (and still refuses to) take my USF fee off of my DSL only line. I have no phone line through them and they still insist that the FCC has not removed the fees for DSL Lines!! I'm on hold with the USAC right now to file a complaint.
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Kevin, 29 Aug 2006 @ 6:02pm

Urge the FCC to Make Verizon Give Back the USF Tax
A friend of mine just launched a Web site today (with a little help from me), that will allow visitors to send a letter to the FCC urging Verizon to give the USF tax savings back to the consumers.

The site is: http://www.stopthedslfeeripoff.com
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Mikey, 30 Aug 2006 @ 1:31pm

Wait a minute
Aren't they still charging $1 a month for touch tone? We should all cancel it and go back to rotary dialing, that would fix 'em!
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