$40 a month is beyond misleading

[sometown]

My bill is $61.97. That's a 155% of the advertised price. $9.50 of that goes to the required router, but $12.68 of that is for the phone service that I didn't order and that I don't want. I haven't had a land-line in almost 20 years. The Sonic bill is an insult. The worst is the "Voice Federal Subscriber Line Charge Fee" which sounds like something the government charges, but it isn't. That charge is the maximum amount a company is allowed to add to their bill, by choice, for allowing customers to be connected to their phone lines, even if you don't connect a phone. https://consumerist.com/2007/06/26/what ... i-buck-it/

I really want to like you Sonic, but this is a scam, up and down.

[Guest]

I didn't think that your citation seemed very credible. However, your point about the subscriber line charge is apparently true according to the FCC themselves:
https://www.fcc.gov/general/faqs-telephone#slc

[sometown]

Really rubs me the wrong way. I don't know how they legally get away with stating that the service costs X, but then dumping additional charges for the same service in the taxes and fees section. It's blatantly dishonest.

[dane]

(This is a duplicate of a reply in another thread, but I think it's really the same topic. Might merge them if so. -DJ)

The issue here is really the bundling, which to date we have made an integral part of our products. The entire philosophy of "Fusion" is that it's a "Fusion" of voice, data - and our goal was, TV. The goal was to deliver all three products under one simple offering, for as low a price as possible. (Also, FaxLine, a free domain name and hosting, email, long distance, even international calling to over sixty countries!)

But things have shifted, with TV becoming available over the top as a separate subscription (Sling TV, HBO Now, etc). As a result, prior to completion of our TV efforts, we pivoted away from integrated TV, launching instead an add-on partnership with DISH, which allows us to solve the need for subscription TV, without diving fully into that product.

Of course there is also the shift away from landlines: as of last year, about 50% of households did not have a landline at all, opting instead for mobile. And consumers don't value long distance as much as they used to, despite our inclusion of free calling to so many countries.

This makes our "Fusion" product awkward, with it's bundling of phone service. While most of our members use the phone service daily, and value it, many do not, and are asking for unbundling - and that request is accelerating, following the trend across the industry.

We are working toward other ways of packaging and offering "Fusion", and I expect we will launch an Internet + DISH bundle, and an Internet-only option in the future. (Maybe it's just "Sonic", rather than "Fusion") These require elimination of a lot of service integration that we have created in the product, the provisioning and software tools in service today, so it's not a simple switch we can flip. But it is a priority for us, and we know it's costing us sales every day, many consumers do just want internet, or just internet and TV.

[bobrk]

Hmmm, my $40 bill is, $48.

Service from 2016-10-01 to 2016-11-01
For:
Bob Kenyon <bobrk@sonic.net>
[...]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Unit Price Total
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
Shell Services Enabled 0.00 0.00
[...]
Personal Website Hosting bobrk.com 0.00 0.00
Voice Federal Universal Service Fund Fee - 0.51 0.51
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California Lifeline Telephone Service 0.43 0.43
Surcharge - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California Deaf and Disabled Telecom 0.04 0.04
Program Surcharge - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California High Cost Fund-A Surcharge 0.03 0.03
- STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge 0.08 0.08
- STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California Advanced Services Fund 0.04 0.04
Surcharge - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California 911 Emergency Surcharge - 0.06 0.06
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice San Jose Utility Users Tax - 0.52 0.52
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice California Public Utility Commission 0.02 0.02
User Fee - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
FaxLine Service 4087531143 0.00 0.00
Voice FCC Interstate Telecom Service 0.01 0.01
Provider Fee - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Property Tax Allotment Surcharge - 0.17 0.17
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Voice Regulatory Recovery Surcharge - 0.43 0.43
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Fusion FTTN Phone Service - 408xxxxxx - 0.00 0.00
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Fusion FTTN Residential X1, STI-0119308-8 - 40.00 40.00
SIID 922321
Fusion FTTN Information - STI-0119308-8 - 0.00 0.00
Data $30.00 Voice $10.00
Fusion FTTN Modem Rental - SIID 922321, 6.50 6.50
Device ID 57373
Credit Collapsed prorate for 2016-09-01 to 0.01cr 0.01cr
2016-10-01 for Voice California 911
Emergency Surcharge - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Credit Collapsed prorate for 2016-09-01 to 0.01cr 0.01cr
2016-10-01 for Voice California Deaf and
Disabled Telecom Program Surcharge -
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Credit Collapsed prorate for 2016-09-01 to 0.10cr 0.10cr
2016-10-01 for Voice California Lifeline
Telephone Service Surcharge -
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Credit Collapsed prorate for 2016-09-01 to 0.02cr 0.02cr
2016-10-01 for Voice California
Teleconnect Fund Surcharge -
STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Credit Collapsed prorate for 2016-09-01 to 0.12cr 0.12cr
2016-10-01 for Voice Federal Universal
Service Fund Fee - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58
Credit Collapsed prorate for 2016-09-01 to 0.12cr 0.12cr
2016-10-01 for Voice San Jose Utility
Users Tax - STI-0119308-8/PAIR58

Total: 48.46

[Guest]

Hmmm, my $40 bill is, $48.

Personally I don't think your bill is right because you're on FTTN but you have no ATA rental charge.

[bobrk]

Hmmmm...

[bobrk]

Hmmm, my $40 bill is, $48.

Personally I don't think your bill is right because you're on FTTN but you have no ATA rental charge.

So much for that "freebie," LOL.

[Guest]

So much for that "freebie," LOL.

Sorry!

[jmsgyrsn]

Just chiming in support of the original posting.

Dane's response is the same as usual, a convoluted one that does not address why it is advertised as $40, or why we are forced to not only pay phone line fees but also rent the ATA adapter.

Meanwhile my ATA adapter sits unopened in the original box while I pay almost $80/year for it. Happy to return it anytime, Sonic!

I'm also certain that when things hopefully do change and the phone line scam is finally retracted, I won't be proactively notified and will end up paying many more months of fees before I realize and call to complain.