Rounding
The Supreme Court this week refused to stop a class action lawsuit against AT&T wireless service based on the practice of "rounding." Many long distance and wireless carriers round telephone calls up to the next half or full minute from when the call is actually completed. Other providers bill in six-second increments. Recently, some carriers have announced programs for billing to the exact second a call is completed.
The court decision did NOT address whether the practice of rounding up to the next minute was illegal or would result in any liability. It provided only that the case would go forward and that AT&T could be sued based on the claims being made by the people who are suing.
The question for consumers is how important is "rounding" to your bill and your selection of a carrier, whether wireless or long distance. The answer depends on your calling pattern. In the Tele-Tips™ Residential Rate Comparison Chart the calling plans with the shorter billing increments (six seconds) never were the least expensive when compared to other plans with longer billing increments (one-minute) but lower rates. The most important factor almost always is the actual rate of the calls and monthly fees and minimums associated with a calling plan.
Nevertheless, there may well be certain calling patterns that would be impacted by rounding up of calls for billing purposes. For example, if you have a lot of short duration calls, you might find a big difference between a carrier that has six-second increments and a carrier with one-minute increments. By short duration, we mean calls that are around three minutes long or shorter. Calls that are much longer than that are not likely to be significantly impacted by rounding. In part this is true because virtually all carriers have a one-minute minimum, so that the difference in rounding begins to take effect after the first minute.
The Internet
The Federal Communication Commission this week issued a ruling that has been much debated and much misunderstood in the consumer community. The question is whether a call from your home to your Internet service provider is considered "interstate" in character or "local" in character. The distinction is very important for a couple of reasons but mainly because it establishes the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission over how the pricing of the 'interconnection' of that call is handled
There are a lot of rumors around that this decision is going to mean modem users are going to have to pay per-minute rates or other fees. But the FCC majority on the decision (one Commissioner dissented) went out of the way to say that this decision had no bearing on imposing per-minute charges. Rather, the decision was issued to settle disputes between the local phone company and new "competitive local phone companies" who were using an ambiguity in the law to collect tens of millions of dollars from the local phone company. Eventually, the decision will result in the end of these payments.
How to File A Complaint
How do you file a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission? Well, as a user of the Internet, you can file a complaint at the FCC Internet site. Go to http://www.fcc.gov/ccb/enforce/index-complaints.html This is where you can tell the FCC about slamming, cramming, over-charging, 10-10 scams and other abuses by long distance companies.
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