this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2025
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The rule took effect in April 2024 after the FCC rejected ISPs' complaints that listing every fee they created would be too difficult. The rule applies specifically to recurring monthly fees "that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government."

ISPs could comply with the rule either by listing the fees or by dropping the fees altogether and, if they choose, raising their overall prices by a corresponding amount. But the latter option wouldn't fit with the strategy of enticing customers with a low advertised price and hitting them with the real price on their monthly bills. The broadband price label rules were created to stop ISPs from advertising misleadingly low prices.

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 2 hours ago

actually the rule to list them all was because of all the fees. this is one of those good things we had under biden that is going away.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

comcast is the first to spearheaded the fees movement

[–] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 18 points 10 hours ago

Now that they don't have to comply with onerous regulations, cable companies will be able to pass the savings on to their customers.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 178 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

ISPs said listing fees was too hard

Only in America. What a shit country!!!
The laughing stock of the civilized world. 🤣🤣🤣

[–] dumbass@aussie.zone 70 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Did you expect them to admit that they just wanted to arbitrarily charge more money with zero oversight or transparency?

[–] dumbass@aussie.zone 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Can I just mock them without wanting anything else?

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I mean sure, just as long as you know they're full of shit

[–] dumbass@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Wait, they're full of shit? I don't believe you!

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I know it's hard to believe, but corporate scumbags lie.

[–] dumbass@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

But lying is wrong and bad, it's badong!

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Wait until you learn about murder

[–] dumbass@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

Explain this "murder" you speak off.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago

You say that like any American doesn't know the actual reason they don't want to list the fees

[–] ezyryder@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 14 hours ago

the importance of local, community run mesh networks is growing by the day. We need to make this the norm going into the 2030s.

[–] stephen@lazysoci.al 52 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Disclosing things is too hard for ultra profitable economic parasites. :(

https://www.investors.com/news/trump-earnings-reports-six-months/

[–] zout@fedia.io 17 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Anything to be able to blow the bubble a bit bigger I guess?

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 8 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Outside of AI, it's already shrinking

They all just don't want to be the first company to admit how bad things are

[–] zout@fedia.io 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

shrinking bubble isn't that terrible, a bubble that bursts is.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 4 hours ago

Oh no, it's really bad when things are shrinking outside the bubble

When the housing market collapses, investors can move money into stocks, bonds, alternate forms of debt, or even just liquid currency

When everything else is falling and the bubble pops, the money is going to go overseas, which is just going to make the pop bigger

[–] leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl 17 points 14 hours ago

once FCC kills the requirement, there will be a new undisclosed fee called "the FCC made us go do all this for nothing" fee.

...or so I think. win-win

[–] kbal@fedia.io 59 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

As someone long accustomed to ISP bills that say little more than "you owe us $60 this month for 1 Internet" I'm finding it hard to imagine what is going on over there.

[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 58 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Over here it's "you owe us $55 for 1 Internet, another $10 for your modem rental, $5 distribution fees, $9 local surcharge and $10 e-bill fee". (Note there there is also a $12 paper bill fee if you don't want the e-bill)

[–] TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 49 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Don’t forget the $3 “governance” fee (not from the government), the $5 “line maintenance” fee, the $7 “I’m sure there was a reason for this one but we forgot” fee, and the $50 “fuck you we have a monopoly on this apartment what are you gonna do about it” fee.

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 9 points 16 hours ago

don't forget the 'there will be an additional $7.50 used anal probe flavored fee beginning next month'

[–] moondoggie@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

And I suppose your electric bill doesn’t have a “transport fee” that’s two to three times the amount you pay for the electricity you actually use.

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 7 points 15 hours ago

nope. but we have an 'account charge' per meter, as well as a 'cost adjustment' that has never adjusted lower.

we've also had charges for meter replacements we never asked for or needed... not like the old spinny dial ones were broken. or the first digital one they put in.. or the second. or the.... i'm on my fifth meter in 25 years.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 19 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I wonder if this is part of the reason why Cox stopped listing their small business plans and prices online.

And then there's the "promotional discount" that expires after a year or two, requiring you to call back in and threaten to cancel your service before they'll give you back the same price you were already paying. It helps if you actually have other ISP options.

I also think you should not be allowed to abandon your copper infrastructure without offering a replacement. AT&T refuses to offer new DSL service even if they have an old POTS line connected to your house because "we don't do DSL anymore" but I guarantee they would have a problem with it if I ripped their pedistal out of my front yard.

[–] FloMo@lemmy.world 9 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I wonder if this is part of the reason why Cox stopped listing their small business plans and prices online. And then there's the "promotional discount" that expires after a year or two, requiring you to call back in and threaten to cancel your service before they'll give you back the same price you were already paying. It helps if you actually have other ISP options.

Can confirm that’s by design, AT&T employs the exact same strategy with their business customers and forcing them into “All-for-less” bundle package.

Need a POTS line? $95 + taxes and fees per month, local service only, call features extra.

But get a POTS line and a $15 a month 250mb data plan on a tablet? Suddenly the POTS lime is $30 including long distance and all call features you normally take for granted included (call waiting, call forwarding, etc).

Of course, that price is guaranteed for a year and you’ll have to call billing (sales) to get it sorted out again.

We’ve let ISP’s get away with murder in the U.S.

[–] danielton1@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

In my area, once T-Mobile became a viable option as a home ISP, Spectrum freaked the fuck out and went nuts chasing people down at the grocery stores and telling people T-Mobile is bad. Spectrum was the only option in town for a very long time, so they got very expensive, and now T-Mobile is offering 5 times the speed for half the price. It's insane. Yeah, T-Mobile isn't perfect, but it's nice to finally have some competition.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Cox is a piece of shit company and would most definitely fuck over their customers asap.

we used to have a phrase in the DSL support world when customers would threaten to go to Cox, "Go suck Cox, you'll be back."

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 13 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

"Does that mean there's no longer a fee to pay the fees?"

"No, we just don't tell you about the fee fee."

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

Michael Jackson tribute rep: “the fee fee, hee hee”

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Do Americans pay specific fees for different internet usages?

I thought it was like everywhere else, ok we give 100/100 internet and you pay us 30 moneys every month, done.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 17 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

ISPs like to offer, say $65 for service (without committing to a specific speed... Their 100/100 service is "up to 100Mbps" and not a guarantee.)

They then want to charge a modem rental fee - another $5/mo. They want to charge a wifi access point rental fee - another $5/mo. They want to charge various regulatory fees, universal access fees, taxes, etc. They want their advertisements to say "$65/mo", but they want to collect more like $90/mo.

You can buy your own modem and save that $5/mo (but they often push back against that, claiming your modem isn't compatible, or that other customers have complained about inferior service with that modem). You can use your own wifi AP and save that $5/mo (but again, they discourage it...) You can't get away from the regulatory fees.

[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

USA are completely insane.

[–] fishos@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Although sometimes you get lucky and the tech support person actually admits that their routers are absolute garbage and while they won't necessarily say "you should buy your own", they don't fight you and subtly encourage you when you say you plan to do just that.

Frontier tried to give us a dual band, single antenna router. 2.5ghz and 5ghz using the same antenna that just alternates between both networks constantly. The vast majority of my smart devices refused to connect because they need constant 2.4ghz network, not some laggy inconsistent psuedo dual network. Argued with the first tech support person trying to get them to understand that I physically could not use that router until they sent me to someone higher who admitted the routers were useless junk. Oh, and the settings could only be accessed by a web portal with limited functionality. The VAST majority of the features were locked behind customer service and having someone else do it for you. And of course their routers had a built in "free Wi-Fi for all our customers" hotspot set up so you were paying to extend THEIR network as well.

Now I have a "gaming" router with 3 antennas that I have complete control over and all of my devices are happy.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 points 12 hours ago

Hah!

How else do you think that US ISPs screw over their customers? I mean, poor guys! Do we really want them to stop cheating now?

[–] Hedup@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

fee for the cable guy to climb to 4th floor