TRACNotes

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August 1 Rate Increases For Sprint and MCI Customers - Sprint and MCI long distance subscribers are in for an expensive shock. Effective August 1, customers on the Sprint Sense and Sprint Sense Day plans will start being charged a $3.95 monthly recurring fee on their phone bills. This fee will be assessed every month whether the subscriber makes a long distance call or not. Customers who also subscribe to Sprint local service will have the fee waived. For more information on this new fee, click here⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾. Subscribers to MCI's Nationwide plan will see their monthly plan fee increase by $2 from $2.95 to $4.95. Additionally, subscribers to MCI's Anytime Calling plan will see their per-call connection fee increase by 14% from 35% to 49%. Anytime Calling plan subscribers will also see the per-minute rate for state-to-state long distance and local toll calls increase by 2% from 9% to 11%. For more information on these increases, click here^(iv) (Editor's Note: According to MCI, the current per-minute rate increase to 9% noted on their website is erroneous.)

July 1 USF Fee Increases to Hit Most Long Distance Consumers - The quarterly change in the Federal Communication Commission's contribution factor to the Universal Service Fund will mean that most long distance subscribers will see a small fee increase on their monthly bills. The July 1 increase in the contribution factor from 8.7% to 8.9% will be passed along to consumers by most of the major long distance carriers. Typically, the USF fee is assessed as a percentage of total monthly usage charges. For more information on this change, click here^(v).

SCAM WATCH

AT&T To Refund Long Distance Consumers Nationwide - Long distance subscribers who received unauthorized charges from AT&T on their phone bills may be entitled to a refund from AT&T, according to a settlement between AT&T and regulators in several states, including Florida, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The alleged violation stems from the erroneous billing of consumers by AT&T between the months of January and March of this year due to a computer billing error. The consumers, who were billed without their consent, were assessed a monthly recurring charge ranging from $4.50 to $8.50. The majority of the consumers billed were not AT&T customers. According to AT&T, long distance subscribers who were misbilled have been identified and will be automatically mailed a refund check within 90 days. Current AT&T subscribers who were mistakenly charged will have their AT&T bills automatically adjusted. Consumers who believe that they were charged erroneously and who do not receive their refund or bill adjustment should contact AT&T customer service at (800) 222-0300.

INTERESTING LINKS

FCC Main Page - http://www.fcc.gov
FCC Complaint Form - http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm
List of State Regulatory Commissions - http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=15

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©2004 Telecommunications Research and Action Center. TRAC grants unlimited rights to reproduce TRACNotes or any information contained in it provided attribution is given as follows: "Source:Telecommunications Research and Action Center. http://www.trac.org"

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