Mediocrates
join:2008-05-27
Raleigh, NC
 ·Vonage
·AT&T CallVantage
| reply to Jahntassa
Re: 'Special Rate'?
Well that depends. Phone companies rely on legislated tariffs that guaranty an RoR on their investment. This is what allows them to have investment horizons that sometimes extend 100 years. After all, it was just recently that telcos stopped recovering for DTMF which was originally tariff'd in 1962. And just last year or the year before Congress finally compelled the end of a tax that was originally collected in 1899 to pay for the Spanish American War.
I'm the biggest hater of junk fees, garbage taxes, tax surchases, taxes on top of taxes but at the end of the day the key business driver that telcos have for breaking up their charges this way is that, not to put too fine a point on it, so they can lie to you about the rates.
That 46.95 or 49.95 monthly is really about 76 dollars. That 'one size fits all' rate doesn't include a 20% adder on top of that which includes a lot of murky garbage you ASSUME is a tax beyond their control, but often it's not. But if the telco wasn't able to disaggregate all that junk they'd be forced to advertise what the real rate to you is, and that's not pretty. |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Castle Rock, CO
| said by Mediocrates  : But if the telco wasn't able to disaggregate all that junk they'd be forced to advertise what the real rate to you is, and that's not pretty. So if you were the boss of Vonage -- and had to find a way to reduce churn and increase revenues -- what would you do: announce a rate increase or add on junk fees? |
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Enlightener
join:2006-01-28
Cedar Park, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| If I was in charge...
Everyone hates junk fees, so stop being chicken about shunning them.
Sell theproduct on value added features and stop trying to be bargain basement pricing.
They've done a great job of showing how the phone company charges for extra features where Vonage is included. Extended that to the billing side.
Personally, I'd pay $40/flat instead of $25 + junk = $32. I'd pay a little more if visual voice mail was flat rate priced. |
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