I just got off the phone with a telemarketer for a local phone carrier that will remain un-named to protect the guilty.
I refused to tell them who my current local phone carrier is (would you want them collecting that kind of detail about you?). The pitch was savings over my current rate. As the representative tallied up the options, it was $XX for basic service and yy cents for 911 and yada-yada-yada and then my ears perked up as she mumbled something about $4.95 for a ‘system access fee’.
I don’t need one of those, thank you. She said the fee is mandatory and that all the carriers charge a system access fee – it covers costs like the network. Gee, I thought that the monthly rate was for the network and all that jazz.
This ‘System Access Fee’ concept started with the cellular industry as a thought that a discrete charge could be attributed to recover the costs of spectrum licenses. Quickly, the fees became a source of substantial extra profit as the number of subscribers rose and the monthly rates climbed well above the amounts needed to pay for spectrum.
As long as people think that this must be some kind of government license fee, carriers would hold their rates fixed, but continue to have the System Access Fee rise outside the contract. Industry Canada tried to intervene in the latest set of license conditions to have carriers clarify that this was not a tax. Many consumers still blame the government and continue to be misled by some confused sales representatives.
Despite the best efforts of some of the incumbents and long distance phone companies to convince you otherwise, Network Access Fees are not charged by ‘all carriers’ and they are not mandatory.
These fees sound like airline and courier fuel surcharges.
Hint to the local phone competitors: if you are going to charge a separate Network Access Fee, then show me a service that can provide a correlated benefit. Like, how about using the money to provide access to alternate long distance networks?