How to Decipher Your Cable Bill

Do you find your cable bill baffling? You're not alone. Every month, millions of people receive bills for cable and broadband service from the likes of Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable that are filled with opaque and vaguely worded charges, fees, and taxes. As a result, virtually everyone who has cable or broadband service ends up paying substantially more than the advertised "sticker price" for their service.

Ambiguous and confusing bill statements are one of the reasons that cable and broadband providers are held in such low esteem by the American public. Corporate giants like Comcast and Time Warner Cable—which are current seeking regulatory approval for their proposed $45 billion merger—routinely rank at the bottom of national customer service surveys.

The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates cable and telecom companies, has made increasing transparency for consumers a key priority. On Wednesday, the agency released a statement "reminding" broadband providers of their obligations under the Open Internet Transparency Rule, which, among other things, "applies to pricing, including monthly prices, usage-based fees, and any other additional fees that consumers may be charged."

But there are reasons to be skeptical about how effective the FCC will be in increasing cable and broadband service provider transparency, as veteran tech policy journalist Karl Bode points out.

"ISPs consistently are allowed to bury all manner of nonsensical fees below the line, allowing them to covertly jack up consumer broadband bills while leaving the advertised price the same," Bode writes at DSLReports. "This is technically false advertising, but I've never seen the FCC (or any other regulator) seriously address the practice."

It's also standard practice in the industry. Bode has documented the various charges that broadband providers like Verizon and AT&T cram into bills.

In its new subscriber documentation, Comcast, the nation's largest cable and broadband provider, makes the following Customer Guarantee: "We will offer easy-to-understand packages and provide you with a clear bill. Our packages are designed to be straightforward…We aim for the same clarity for our bills."

Really?

I just signed up for Comcast service, and was hoping that the bill might be a little less confusing than what I was used to from years of Time Warner Cable, which issues bills that require an advanced degree (or Mensa certification) to understand.

But upon receipt of my first Comcast bill, I was once again confronted with a baffling array of charges, fees and taxes. What follows is my attempt to decipher the various items on my monthly bill. I spoke to a Comcast customer service rep who was quite polite, but even she seemed confused about some of the charges on the bill.

XFINITY Bundled Service: "Triple-play" package that includes cable TV, broadband Internet, and phone service. $99.00

HBO: Definitely don't want to miss HBO's great programming, especially this series. $19.95

HD Technology Fee: Fee for HD cable box. $9.95

Franchise Related Cost: "It's a Comcast tax for the actual equipment," the rep said. She was unable to be more specific. $0.65

Anyroom DVR Service: Fee associated with DVR service that enables recording of programming. $10.00

Blast! Internet Service: Enhanced broadband speeds advertised at 105Mbps. Hey, it's not gigabit fiber, but it's a dramatic improvement over the 5Mbps down that I was getting with Time Warner Cable in New York City. And according to Comcast Speed Test, I'm topping out at 119.05Mbps down and 11.49Mbps up. Not bad. $10.00

Wireless Gateway Device: This charge is for "the modem that hooks up to the internet and provides internet service," the rep said. $8.00

Install Fee Triple Play: One-time charge. $90

Service Activation: One-time charge. $10

Universal Connectivity Charge: "Those charges are part of the taxes for the installation and activation," the Comcast rep told me. "Comcast puts a tax in there for your activation. That's the tax to Comcast." Recurring. $0.77

Regulatory Recovery Fees: (Long pause). "It's a pretty much a tax for your XFINITY voice service to recover Comcast's contributions to the federal and state and municipal programs and assessments, and for universal service." $0.09

Broadcast TV Fee: "It's for transmitting standard broadcast signals," according to the Comcast rep. "It's a portion of broadcast retransmission costs, listed as a separate line item, applied to all XFINITY TV customers who are not on a promotion or an annual contract." $1.50

State Sales Tax (TV): Pretty straight-forward tax to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. $0.01

Franchise Fee (TV): "This is part of the federal tax," the rep said. "It's a percentage of the XFINITY TV portion of the bill." I'm still unclear what exactly this fee is for, and the rep wasn't able to be more specific. $5.81

FCC Fee (TV): "This fee applies to all customers who buy XFINITY TV service. This is going toward the federal regulation of cable operators." $0.09

State Sales Tax (Voice): "This is the state sales tax for telephone service." $1.87

911 Fee (Voice): For emergency service. $0.75

"And by any chance are you interested home security?"

No thanks.