RELATED COMMUNICATIONS BILLING ARTICLES, 2021-2022

Communications Prices

Wireless Prices are Out of Control

• America’s Wireless Service Prices Are 5–20 Times More Expensive than Overseas. Why?

 The “Triple Play” Prices are Out of Control.

• Is America’s ‘Triple Play’ Overcharged $170.00+ Per Month Compared to Europe?

Added Made Up Fees with No Audits and No Government Mandates

• FACT SHEET 1: Remove Made-Up Fees: Broadcast & Sports Fee

No Truth in Billing

• “Teletruth Proposes Truth-in-Billing Act of 2005 New Networks Institute and Teletruth petition FCC

No More Taxes, Fees, Surcharges

• No More Taxes, Fees, Surcharges on the Communications Bill

Harvesting

• Report: Harvesting and Monopoly Stranded & Harvested & the Creation of the Digital Divide.
• Article: Monopoly: Communications ‘Harvesting’ as an Antitrust Case

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Teletruth’s Progress Report, 1992-2012

From FCC, IRS, SEC Complaints, State Filings, Proposed Legislation, to Phone Bill Audits and Refunds, or Helping to Initiate Class Action Suits.

§       Teletruth and NNI Proposes Truth-in-Billing Act of 2005 

§       https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/6517891212.pdf

• Truth-In-Billing Petition Against the “FCC Subscriber Line Charge”. Teletruth Requests an Immediate Investigation into Various Truth-in-Billing Violations of the Term and Line-Item Charge “FCC Line Charge” as Well as the Creation of a New Proposed Rulemaking to Fix the FCC’s Truth-in-Billing Guidelines.
• http://www.teletruth.org/docs/FCCLineChargeTIB.pdf
• “Over the last decade, the FCC has repeatedly brought up the issue that phone bills are unreadable and that something should be done about it. In March of 2000, the FCC set up new guidelines and rules about the country’s phone bills known as “Truth-In-Billing”. The guidelines include basic principles about the information to be supplied to customers.And yet, phone bill information, as well as all accompanying information has major errors or omissions.
• “The FCC Line Charge is mislabeled and deceptive. The common belief is that it funds the FCC, which is wrong.
• FCC RULE:” …accompanied by a brief, clear, non-misleading, plain language description of the service or services rendered;”
• Full Complaint:Teletruth today filed a formal “Data Quality Act” challenge against the FCC’s data on phone rates, statistics and other related data, claiming that the information products are seriously flawed and in need of immediate revision. Teletruth claims that the data fails in being objective, lacks quality and is not reliable, lacks utility, and is not reproducible, thus in violation of the Act. http://www.teletruth.org/docs/Dataqualityactharvesting.doc
• Report “AT&T and MCI (Verizon) Are Harvesting Customers”
  http://www.teletruth.org/docs/ATTMCIharvest.doc

Special Events and Items

• Class Action Suit settlement against Verizon NJ for inoperative circuits, based on phone data collected through Teletruth audits. October 2006 http://www.teletruth.org/prcircuits.htm
• Grant from the California Consumer Protection Fund to work with UCAN on phone bill issues, June 2004.
• Report: “Phone Bill Independence: An Autopsy of Phone Bills”, April 2004
• http://www.teletruth.org/phonebillindependencereport.html
• Expose: “The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives of Phone Bills”, Released April 2004
• http://www.teletruth.org/dirtysecretlives.htm

Phonebill Issues:

• Local prices have soared since the break up of AT&T: 426% in New York City, Harvard Nieman Watchdog, 2006
• http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00233
• 14 Reasons Why Universal Service has become a Slush Fund and the Steven’s Bill is Flawed, 2006
• http://www.newnetworks.com/usfanalysis.htm
• “Send Us Your Phone Bill Campaign with ABC News, Pittsburgh
• http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/money/3920162/detail.html
• Class Action Suit settlement against Verizon NJ for missing Small Business discounts, based on phone data collected through Teletruth audits. July/April, 2004
• http://www.teletruth.org/Smallbusinessdiscountsettlement.html
• “Phone Bill Tax &Surcharge Intelligence Tests”, July 2004 (Easy and Hard)
• http://www.newnetworks.com/phonebillintelligencetest.htm
• Comments at the NASCUA Declaratory Truth-in-Billing Petition, July 2004
• http://www.teletruth.org/docs/CommentsFCCTIB.pdf
• Data Quality Act Challenge of the FCC Line Charge, June 2004
• http://www.teletruth.org/RemoveFCCLineCharge.html
• Truth-in-Billing Petition over the FCC Line Charge, June 2004
• http://www.teletruth.org/RemoveFCCLineCharge.html
• FREE Phonebill audits, 2002 – 2003
• http://www.newnetworks.com/PRSendphonesbills.htm
• 2 Class Action suits initiated,Teletruth members are acting as consultants, 2002-2004
• http://www.newnetworks.com/class_action_suits_against.htm.
• 48 NJ phonebill Audits and Truth-in-Billing Complaints filed with FCC,2002.
• 48 “Truth in Billing” Complaints filed with the NJ Dept. of Trans. and Energy, 2002
• proposed bill in New Jersey Legislature on phone bill issues, 2002
• FCC Comments over Long Distance, NJ and “OSS” issues, 2002 http://www.teletruth.org/docs/NJ271commentsBK.doc
• “FCC Subscriber Line Charge” complaint, 2001 http://www.newnetworks.com/pressslccomplaint.htm
• “Truth in Billing” laws, 1998
• http://www.newnetworks.com/FCC_CC_98-170.txt