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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

I just pulled up an old comcast bill and it has: "Federal Cost Recovery Fee" and "Universal Service Fund Surcharge (State)" and "Utility User’s Tax /Business" and "Universal Connectivity Charge" and "911 Line Tax (State)"

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In the UK, for most bills, it is line rental + provider fee. Line rental is to pay for the copper wiring that is still used for landline phones and all of the infra for it (via local loop unbundling). It goes to OpenReach and every ISP resells it unless they plant their own infra (Virgin, Hyperoptic)

Most ISPs sell broadband only plans now, even on copper installations.

Those are all pass-through fees. They are just taxes.

They are not just taxes. Reimbursing the telco for their compliance costs makes about as much sense and reimbursing a restaurant for complying with local health code.

If they were actually taxes Comcast wouldn’t be fighting this rule, which does not apply to government mandated taxes.

I tracked down the FCC filing this article is about and read it. They are just taxes. There may be other things in the FCC rule that aren't about taxes, but the NCTA's objection is exclusively to the taxes.

Like most things, the government creates a problem then convinces everyone they aren't the reason.

I can't get broadband at my home despite being less than a mile from multiple providers in 3 different directions. I literally have an att fiber running down my row to a neighborhood less than a mile a way.

After being pissed at att for several years I finally looked into it and realized the county won't approve att putting in the service for anything but developer projects. Basically crony capitalism...

Do you think ATT is for or against not having to compete on every block?

Most of these fees have nothing to do with exclusivity, and for the most part AT&T and Comcast don't get exclusivity in their franchise agreements. Go look yours up (your city or township should make it very simple to find, and if it doesn't, there's a reason for that!) and see if they got exclusivity.

I don't follow. In my specific case there has been one developer locked up already for collusion with the county so I think I'm fair in assuming the issue is not ATT in this case.

Plus what's stopping Comcast from coming down my street other than the countys rules about new developments only?

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