Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Peter Dazeley)
Frontier Communications is raising its sneaky “Internet Infrastructure Surcharge” from $4 to $7 later this month, widening the gap between its advertised broadband prices and the actual prices customers pay.
Telecom providers love to advertise low rates and then sock customers with bigger bills by charging separate fees for things that are part of the core service. In cable TV, that means customers see one advertised rate for a bundle of channels and then pay way more after the addition of “Broadcast TV” and “Regional Sports Network” fees that supposedly cover the costs of certain channels that are part of the bundle. With Frontier Internet service, customers pay the advertised rate for Internet service and then get hit with fees including the Internet Infrastructure Surcharge.
While some fees cover costs that providers must pay to the government, the Internet Infrastructure Surcharge is decidedly not one of them. In its list of fees, Frontier describes the surcharge as follows:
