[1] https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandlabels
[2] https://www.pcmag.com/news/isps-to-fcc-listing-every-governm...
Then add another level as you're not being sold service by Spectrum but Spectrum of New York, and variable tax/fee contributions depend on total revenue of that subsidiary (e.g. Universal Service Fund[1]).
It can be fairly complicated in a static state, but then add in new/pending legislature and it's something that needs to be updated monthly.
Yes, they already do that work internally (and if they get it wrong, the government taxing entities tell them they are miscalculating the amount and assesses penalties and fees) but publishing it adds a new dimension.
1: https://sourceadvisors.com/blogs/salt/what-is-the-federal-un....
Again it's not a defense of the big companies, but it is a legitimate beef.
It's simply not possible that two different things can both be true? That ISPs already have to do it so should disclose what they're charging, but that also the number of taxes and fees are ridiculous? Why is that so hard to separate in people's minds?
If a Comcast president said that ham sandwiches are better when they're grilled, and I said "he's got a good point there" would that also be misconstrued as a defense of their billing practices?
But it's completely ridiculous for ISPs (or anybody else) to use that as a justification for dark patterns during the sales cycle.
Now, if the taxes and fees were so complicated, the company simply couldn't comply at all, at any point in the customer lifecycle, then sure, that's a good excuse. But that's not the case - ISPs manage to figure this stuff out eventually.
You know ISPs go out of their way to artificially inflate the number of taxes and fees they charge you, right?
If every company took the approach ISPs took, then every recipe in the U.S. would be the length of a CVS receipt, listing out every minor and incidental tax and fee the company happened to pay as part of its operating procedures. You don’t see stores passing on “electricity fees”, and “union negotiations taxes” etc etc, because only ISPs take affront at the idea that they should pay for their business expenses, rather that passing them on a additional itemised billing items to their customers.
As several other people told you, because they can get it right on the bill but not on the contract and advertising. If they can do the first, they can do the other two but they don't want to.
I don't see this isn't a legitimate beef. If you can't comply with local regulations because you serve too many municipalities it sounds like you aren't a good fit to serve those customers. Perhaps the solution is to sell your infrastructure off to smaller, local companies who can comply. Or heck even just other equally big companies who are well run enough to manage such a problem.
Ow well, if yhey cant figure out all these complexities, how do they know they are charging me the rifht amount?
US is really a wild place, if I demanded a random, unexplainable and higher than expected amount of money from my customers, I would be accused of fraud and no court would uphold my demands
And you can't tell me that metro net's mandatory "technology fee" of $10 to every customer can't be disclosed before you get to a buy page
The two things that are going to be difficult are if you want to promote, say, a nationwide "$60/month plan", or if you've got some corporate tax that's hard to calculate on a marginal basis that you're trying to pass onto consumers. Neither of those things are motivating to me. If it's too hard to compute the accurate tax fee per person, just roll that into your base plan calculation and budget accordingly. We don't expect to have to pay a corporation's corporate tax as a separate line item on the bill, so why should we expect that consumers have to pay an industry-specific corporate tax as a separate line item?
At the end of the day, the reality is that this is an industry that is trying to advertise plans that are at wildly different rates from those the consumer has to pay, and they're upset that some truth-in-advertising laws is starting to be enforced. It's not even outlawing the wildly different rates; it's merely requiring transparency in the differences!
Of course that would require ISPs to be honest and upfront with their advertising and billing practices, something US ISP seem to be incapable of.
"the company “would have to create over 29,000 separate labels”" from your source 2.