Bill $28.83
res line $19.75
911/Fed Univ Serv Fund/Fed Excise/State univ serv fund/Tele Assistance prog/Federal Access Charge $9.08
ANd is going up ANOTHER $3-4 NEXT month..

I would figure that about 1/2 is profit to go into Expansion.. WHERE??
Even if its only 1/4. ALL the people in the USA paying into Expansion..(about $5 per person with a LAND LINE) every month they are getting enough money to install FIBER.
estimate 150,000,000 HOME lines, and 2 times that for Business(every business needs 2 or more LAND lines(cc card machines, fax,..)) 450,000,000 total lines times $5.
$2,250,000,000 per month??
This over 4 Corps??
4 corps that cant figure out WHO owns WHOM?? Parts break off and buy up the MOTHER company, then change their name and Buy up another company then SELL themselves off, to be bought up buy the other Company.

And for MOSt of you that DONT understand..
YOUR CELLPHONE USES PHONE LINES.
There IS NO WIRELESS BACKBONE across this nation.

The Touch Tone technology was another phone company scam. It saved them billions, over the older pulse code technology. But rather than use the money they saved to replace the older circuits. They charged everyone for the Touch Tone upgrade. And used the money to keep the pulse code system going (actually made it solid state), to act as a form of punishment of NOT upgrading. In my area, we had pulse for the longest time. Than it became Touch Tone, without any notice or fee. And then one day it became pulse dial again, for a time. Then mandatory Touch Tone, with a fee increase. We never asked for it, it was forced on us. And yet the system responds to either kind of dialer. So why the HELL didn’t we get a rate reduction for technology that saved the phone company from getting mechanical relays in use?

Silly me, I think telephones are for talking, and I’ll go one further…I think cell phones are for when I’m not in reach of a land line. As far as it goes, I don’t really care to talk on the phone unless I have something to say or want to hear what the other party has to say. 90% of telephone usage these days seems to be complete rubbish.

Now, once again, I WOULD like to get a cell phone with decent fidelity and service. But I gave up holding my breath on that decades ago.

Second, there is nothing wrong with the government looking at cell phone charges. If the providers are colluding on charges it is the government’s responsibility to investigate and protect the consumer.

Third, I expect the government to regulate the market place when the competition has been reduced to a few major players that practice unfair practices. In short, read your dispute mechanism in your contract.

#8 – Despite the fact that I am a free market Republican, I think that it’s acceptable for Congress to step in occasionally to help the little guy when he’s getting pinched by big corporations. They do it all the time.

#11 – Nothing will come of it.

#13 – The first carrier to cheaply do this will more than make up their “losses” when customers flock their way.

It’s an older (and outdated) way of doing business. Same mindset as the RIAA: “If you’re not paying for it, you can’t have it, and we hate you for it.” What they fail to realize is that there’s an even older business concept: lure customers in by giving some things away for free, then nail them with other charges.

Or should both interests be taken into account with perhaps a bias one way or the other?

Silly to think society should be arranged for only a few to make big bucks off the backs of the many. Equally silly to think the leading edge of technology can be divined by government. Good thing there is a lot of slop in between unless you imagine yourself to be an entrepreneur.

People think it’s the US carriers making the money?

Canada is way more profitable at 45.9% vs. the US at 32.1%.

The most profitable telecommunications company in the world was Telecom New Zealand, with a margin of 61.4 per cent.

So, before you start bashing US telecom companies for being greedy, think about this. The 90% profit margin for SMS is keeping the US companies at the global average profit. With all the regulations imposed on the cell phone companies, they have to turn a profit somewhere.

As post #18 said, this is a matter of interstate commerce if you have an industry colluding to set prices.

Fortunately, my company pays for my ATT cellular oriented charges but my partner pays that obscene $20/mo. We are huge texting users.

I can only see texting getting bigger as location based services will mostly rely on getting presence updates from that same channel. Hopefully the government will watch for price fixing from carriers (now that a government for the people will be coming).

Yet, there are people here that think MS (or anyone else for that matter) won;t get away with that cloud pay-as-you-go-computing crap.

#7 Oh, a cell phone industry apologist. I wonder where you’d work.