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Whatever happened to those days, and why are we now settling for anywhere from three to five times that monthly expense (once special monthly fees and taxes are included) for not that terrific an increase in service?

You might think it is because of the combination of inflation and how much more we get these days for our monthly fees. Yet if that is true, why is it that in France the U.S. dollar equivalent rate today for a bundle that includes high speed internet access (at much faster internet speed than is typically available in this country), telephone service, plus multiple cable TV stations, is $38 a month?

Valerie and I get the cheapest service we can find: no TV subscription (as we use an old analog television set and what comes in via a small local antenna, periodically watching movies [averaging about 50 cents each] obtained via bargain stores), no wireless, a dial-up modem for internet access, a Tracfone cell device that cost $30 plus tax at Wal-Mart and for which I pay $20 plus tax four times a year for extra time and minutes, a monthly low rate for unlimited landline local calls plus $5 for long distance landline calls at 5 cents a minute. Yet, once all the fees and taxes are added in, this rather austere combination still averages $103 a month, an amount we consider robbery.

Nonetheless, our fairly purist stance is coming under considerable pressure. Like so many before us, even at still higher prices we feel the need for an upgrade of our internet plus telecommunications package. We too want the convenience and versatility of more up-to-date utilities so that we can perform what now are considered normally plugged-in functions with a lot less hassle, and are thus in the market for the best new deal available.

All we can find so far are offers that look barely reasonable, i.e. outrageous, but better than some. These "deals" only look good when one excludes the added fees and taxes and the required additional (unwanted) service bundles, and even then are just for a year, after which the provider(s) are free to jack up the rates by a third, 50%, or even more.

When we ask just for the most basic service, for instance high speed internet by itself, we can find reasonably priced quotes (around $15-$25 a month), but if we actually go to buy them we are told they are only available with higher priced TV, wireless, and/or phone services we did not request or particularly want.

I have gone into this much detail with respect to internet/telecommunications services in order to show how extra costs have been piled on, making more money for the big company providers, though with little extra or desired service for the consumer.

I could have been this specific about any of several categories of spending: airfare, medical and dental services, pharmaceuticals, insurance, auto sales and repairs, water and electrical utilities, financial services, legal services, etc. A host of paid-for services now involve bills with itemized costs, multiple entries for specialized procedures or categories of service, plus added fees and taxes.

We are hardly the only ones to take note of such things. From a new book by David Cay Johnston, The Fine Print - How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind, as well as interviews of the author, we learn that:

• Consumers in the U.S. pay more than in other nations for the internet;

• Yet our internet service speed ranks just 29th among countries with internet service;

• We pay almost 40 times as much as in Japan for our internet service;

• On average our bundled services (phone, TV, and internet package deals) cost us $160 a month once special fees and taxes are factored in.

• Our internet service is far behind what is offered in even smaller countries, for example in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Moldavia;

• The "internet superhighway" idea was sold by big companies to politicians, regulators, and consumers with claims for terrific service that would be available to most everyone. However, these "super" services are only available in a few selected areas or to high paying consumers and largely are only offered in ways to most benefit these companies. The much touted best internet systems are offered in only a few places;

• Verizon, for instance, has offered fiber optic service to just 16 million consumers, with no more on the drawing board;

• Though fees and taxes levied include charges for large areas getting better service at a reasonable cost, many places outside metropolitan NYC likely will do without higher speed internet for the foreseeable future;

• When prices are raised by our telephone and other companies, the extra charges are routinely masked in special fees. Were a single bill amount to jump 20%, we would probably notice it. When obscured by five new fees in small print, maybe not so much;

• The "FCC line charge," one such fee, has more than doubled but has nothing to do with money that goes to or is required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). All this means is that the phone company is assessing us a fee for connecting to its own long-distance system, for which the infrastructure in most cases was created and paid for years ago, pure profit for the large telecommunications company;

• Municipalities have attempted to create their own lower cost telecommunications systems for the benefit of their local citizens but have been blocked from doing so by such companies as Verizon, AT&T, Cox, and Time Warner, who use lobbying and legal leverage to maintain their control over consumers' access to services and hence over the (higher) prices they can charge customers;

• Similar methods are used by health insurers and medical providers. As one result, U.S. healthcare costs are higher than in other developed countries that nonetheless have better overall records for longevity, limited childhood mortality, etc.

And so it goes.

Primary Source: A Close Look at Your Bills' "Fine Print." David Cay Johnston on NPR; September 20, 2012

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