Is The FCC About To Change Your Cable Bill?The agency wants pay-TV providers to justify a shady bill

[whitewolf8214]

Is The FCC About To Change Your Cable Bill?....The agency wants pay-TV providers to justify a shady billing practice. http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...-your-cable-bill.aspx?source=eogyholnk0000001

One of the most frustrating things for cable customers is that the advertised price for monthly service is not what they actually pay each month.The major players including Comcast, Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR), and Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) add extra fees on top of the listed price on a monthly basis. The terms and costs can vary from company to company, but all three of these companies charge something called a broadcast fee. That's a surcharge designed to offset the fees the cable providers pay in order to retransmit the major broadcast networks to their customers.It's hard to dispute that this is a real expense for the pay-TV companies that they are justified in charging their subscribers for. Where it gets dicey is the fact that these are standard monthly surcharges -- not one-time or occasional extra fees -- yet they are almost never included in the advertised monthly price for cable packages.That's where the Federal Communications Commission appears to be taking issue with big cable. The federal agency is looking for justifications from the industry as to why it should allow the practice to continue, Multichannel.com reported.

If in wrong section please move and I apologize wasn't sure if this was right spot to post this!!

 

[Juan]

You could
Say the same about satellite

 

[Tampa8]

You could
Say the same about satellite

Like what? All I see are taxes added to my Dish bill. Their bill is nothing like the Charter bill here. Maybe Direct Tv has confusing info?

 

[Mr Tony]

nope. Directv has taxes. In some areas there is a RSN fee but that is in areas with multiple RSN's

Cable has a broadcast fee and plenty of "local" fees. I remember seeing a buddy's Charter bill when he had just lifeline. Plan was 24.99 but after fees and taxes it was over $40. What got me was that you needed a box (that they charged like $7 for) as everything was digital scrambled (even the locals)

 

[king3pj]

nope. Directv has taxes. In some areas there is a RSN fee but that is in areas with multiple RSN's

Cable has a broadcast fee and plenty of "local" fees. I remember seeing a buddy's Charter bill when he had just lifeline. Plan was 24.99 but after fees and taxes it was over $40. What got me was that you needed a box (that they charged like $7 for) as everything was digital scrambled (even the locals)

My fees on my Charter bill add up to about $7 or $8 including the taxes. This is for things like the emergency alert system and local access channels. I'm sure it can vary from town to town but $15 in fees seems pretty extreme.

As for the box part, that's not really any different than satellite. Not needing a box at each TV used to be an advantage to cable since you could save a lot of money in equipment fees. You could put a DVR or standard digital cable box at a TV if you wanted extra features but it wasn't necessary for most channels. Since the switch to all digital they are really no different than satellite anymore in that you need to have a box at each TV. CableCards are still a huge advantage though. One $2 CableCard provides my Tivo Roamio and Tivo mini with all my channels and recordings.

 

[Mr Tony]

As for the box part, that's not really any different than satellite. .

last I checked the 1st box with satellite was included

 

[jegrant]

I think that any kind of retransmission fees should be 1. required to be included in the cost of limited basic, or whatever the "broadcast basic" package is called and 2. limited to the actual total expense paid to local channels by the MVPD operator. It should be shown on the bill as "Limited Basic $13.50" and on the next line indented "Including $3.50 Local Channel Retransmission Fees". Something like that.

 

[king3pj]

last I checked the 1st box with satellite was included

That's true if you have a single, non-DVR receiver. I guess I was just thinking about what my parents pay Dish in equipment fees versus what I pay Charter.

They have 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey on their account and pay $31 in equipment fees every month. Thats....

$12 for DVR service (I don't really consider the first receiver free if you have to pay a $12 DVR fee for it)
$12 for Hopper receiver
$7 for Joey receiver

Their second Hopper could easily be replaced with a joey since it's in a rarely used room but when they signed up for it they were the same price and 2 more people were living in the house at the time.

At the same time I pay $2 for a CableCard. Now, to be fair they have one more receiver than I do but I could easily add another Mini without increasing my monthly fees. The other point is that I had to pay for lifetime service on my Roamio but I got a really good deal on that.

 

[RONZ]

last I checked the 1st box with satellite was included

The first box on Comcast is free as well