Your telephone bill will increase in September, and nobody told you until now (Houston: house, taxes)

[elnina]

Attention all Texans who use a cell phone or landline:
Starting with September’s phone bill, your bill is going up.
I can’t provide a specific number for you except to say that all Texas phone users are about to contribute to a $210 million fund to pay a backlog of debt owed to rural telephone companies and phone co-ops.
Watch this line on your phone bill:
Texas Universal Service Fund. It will increase and not by few pennies.
This month, without public discussion, the PUC quietly approved an order increasing the rate from 3.3% to 24%, effective Aug. 1.
A note will be included in your phone bill.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watc...you-until-now/

[Pilsn3r]

Originally Posted by elnina

Attention all Texans who use a cell phone or landline:
Starting with September’s phone bill, your bill is going up.
I can’t provide a specific number for you except to say that all Texas phone users are about to contribute to a $210 million fund to pay a backlog of debt owed to rural telephone companies and phone co-ops.
Watch this line on your phone bill:
Texas Universal Service Fund. It will increase and not by few pennies.
This month, without public discussion, the PUC quietly approved an order increasing the rate from 3.3% to 24%, effective Aug. 1.
A note will be included in your phone bill.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watc...you-until-now/

I wonder if the old trick of getting your phone in a different state (with lower cell taxes) still works*? I had my cell bill sent to my parents in a lower tax state (even before this increase) and I paid less. That is, until I got married and got on a "family" plan, and bought a house in TX.

*I bought a new cell with a new carrier and got a new number while visiting my parents in the lower tax state. Switched it to paperless statements and paid my bill online monthly - it only showed the taxes for my parents state.

[H'ton]

Mine just went up $8

[Need4Camaro]

Mine hasn’t changed yet but I’m still using my Seattle number with no intention of changing it.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by elnina

I can’t provide a specific number for you except to say that all Texas phone users are about to contribute to a $210 million fund to pay a backlog of debt owed to rural telephone companies and phone co-ops.

This is the kind of socialism country folks like
Why do city people have to pay for their debt?


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kxa...al-texans/amp/

The Texas Universal Service Fund was established in 1987 to ensure all Texans had access to basic, affordable telecommunications services.

“We figured out that the big phone companies didn’t have the resources and the small communities didn’t have the resources to be able to pay for those connections that were expensive to run a 10 mile line. And sometimes, that’s the only person on that line, that doesn’t make a lot of business sense,” Mark Seale with the Texas Telephone Association explained.

The fund supplements phone companies in rural areas to make sure that rural customers paid the same amount for commensurate services as urban customers.

[Ghost Town]

So who owes that rural money? Folks with hundreds of acres, $30K/acre? Cancel their AG exemption and problem solved

[elnina]

Originally Posted by H'ton

Mine just went up $8

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Mine hasn’t changed yet but I’m still using my Seattle number with no intention of changing it.

I think it starts on 1st of September.

[elnina]

PUC loses lawsuit
Every month, Texas phone users pay toward the Universal Service Fund so that dozens of rural telephone companies can provide phone service to several million Texans who live in remote areas. The cost of wiring is too expensive.
In the past several years the PUC fell behind in making the payments mandated by the Texas Legislature. The rate was 3.3% of the basic service cost on your phone bill.
Then in 2020 jumped to 6%.
The new rate is going to jump to a whopping 24%.
We have been baffled by this from the beginning,” says Mark Seale of the Texas Telephone Association about state leaders’ avoidance of this growing debt. “If they’d raised the rate two years ago at 6% they would have avoided this entire thing.”

(From the same source.)

[Seguinite]

When we switched to Tmobil (from Verizon) a couple years ago, their big thing was $X per month... and only $X, no taxes/add-ons. I'm sure they're accounted for in the plan cost, but it feels better that way.

SO takes care of the bill, so I have no idea. We do still have the Texas numbers... but I'll change them tomorrow if they add 3 cents for this. I kinda get why they might need to subsidize the rurual providers... but kinda not at the same time.

[Dopo]

I checked my bill and at the moment we pay PUC $0.50
With this change, it would go up to $4

Yes, it’s little,
But it pi$$es me off that it’s ok to subsidize people that are against government subsidies
And then we are told that there’s no money for roads in Houston and we have to have toll roads.