What's on Your Phone Bill?
Many of today's consumer do not understand the various charges and items on their monthly phone bills, Here is a quick reference that describes some of these charges.
911 - This charge is imposed by local governments to help pay for emergency services such as fire and rescue.
Federal Excise Tax - This should NO LONGER be charged on your phone bill! If you are still being charged a Federal Excise Tax on your bill, contact the FCC immediately.
State & Local Taxes - a percentage of the total long distance bill, administered by the state and local government, and can be referred to a "gross tax receipt".
Subscriber Line Charge - Instituted after the break-up of AT&T in 1984 to cover the costs of the local phone network. This charge may appear as "FCC charge for Network Access", "Network Access Fee", "Federal Line Cost Charge", "Interstate Access Charge", "interstate Single Line Charge", "Customer Line Charge" or "FCC Approved Line Charge". The FCC Caps the max price that a company may charge for this fee. This is NOT a government charge or tax (as it would seem to be), and it does NOT go to the Government's pocket, but to the carriers.
State Subscriber Line Charge - This charge in mandated by some states public service or utility commissions, to compensate the local phone company for part of the cost of providing local telephone lines associated with state service, ie. intrastate long distance and local exchange services.
Local number portability - a payment each month for up to 5 years for the privilege of being able to keep you phone number should you change local carriers. Not a tax either,although allowed by the FCC.
Payphone access - 30 cents (average) for each calling card call made from a payphone. Money goes to payphone owner.(if you even know what a payphone is :)
Directory Assistance Fee - Charged up to $1 for each time you dial an area code plus 555-1212
Even Your Phone Bill is Regulated!
To ensure that telephone bills do give consumers the essential information they need to protect themselves from fraud and to make informed choices, the FCC has the following rules and guidelines that phone companies must follow when creating your phone bill:
- Be clearly organized
- Identify the service provider associated with each charge
- Highlight any new providers and indicate the date the change was made
- Contain full and non-misleading descriptions of charges.
- Identify those charges for which failure to pay will not result in the disconnection of a customer's basic local service.
- Provide a toll free number for customer to call for customer service in order to lodge a complaint or to obtain information. If the customer does not receive a paper telephone bill, but receives a bill by email or over the Internet the telephone company may provide the customer with an email address or website to inquire about charges
- Use standardized labels when referring to certain line item charges relating to federal regulatory action, such as "local number portability" and subscriber line charges.