Darren, Supporting your post...
Whatever,the reason, all homeowners with more than a single phone line
should get ready to pay an extra $1.50 a month next, year, and: more
in coming years, under rules passed spring Federal Communications
Commission.
Every phone fine carries a called a subscriber line charge." That fee
will stay at.$3.50 per month for the first phone line in a home, but on
Jan 1, it will increase to $5 a month for every additional line
Residences that have two or more lines on the same account will
see the higher charge on their January bills, but Bell Atlantic said
it probably take the company till March to identify consumers who have
multiple lines on separate bills.
The charge for each extra line will Increase to $6 a month as of
Jan. 1, 1999, and by the year 2000 it could go as high as $9 a month
based on a formula set by the FCC. But the FCC expects that the charge
nationally will average $7.60 a month.
Bell Atlantic, which serves New York State, probably will keep the
extra-line charge to around $8, said Frank Gumper, vice president of
long-range public policy.
The rule changes came in May, when the FCC overhauled the system
through which long-distance companies pay local phone companies for
the portion of calls carried on the local company's network.
Some have labeled the increase in the subscriber-line charge a "modem
tax" because consumers often buy second lines to hook computers to the
Internet, but the FCC has said it sees the increase as a way to stop
unnecessarily subsidizing homeowners' extra phone lines.
As of Jan. 1, the per-line charge for businesses will increase from
$5.92 a month to $7.77 a month in New York State.
Although experts disagree on just how much residential phone service
is being subsidized by revenues from business lines and other sources,
the industry group United States Telephone Association estimates that,
without subsidies, residential phone service would cost about $35 a
month on average, lower in urban and suburban areas.
Bell Atlantic Corp. said about 30 percent of its customers will be
affected by the change in subscriber-line charges.
The increases in subscriber-line charges probably will turn some
consumers away from having additional phone lines, particularly if the
rate goes to $9 a month, said Ron Cowles, research and development
manager for Northern Business Information a unit of the Gartner Group.
"That's a fairly sizable increase," Cowles said. He estimated that
demand for second lines, which has grown at the rate of about 20
percent a year, will slow to 1 percent to 3 percent a year with the
new charges.
Meanwhile, the FCC is considering scaling back subsidies at least for
the first six months of next year that would provide schools,
libraries and rural healthcare facilities with discounted hookups to
the Internet.
The FCC expects to vote soon on an order providing $625 million in
subsidies to schools and libraries and $50 million for rural
health-care providers for the first half of 1998, FCC Chairman Bill
Kennard said yesterday. |
