Consumer transparency

Examples: promo rates, monthly cost bumps after first year, extra charges for exceeding monthly data quota, “typical” Internet speed caveats.

This is something that’s always bothered me about high-speed Internet (broadband) service providers. All those promo solicitations in the USPS mail and online – rates which only are for new customers and for 12 months and which do not match the rates on their websites, and all the fine print re additional taxes & fees.

So, hopefully this new FCC ruling will be a good thing.

We all read those nutrition labels, eh. Murky rules – what could go …

• Washington Post > “Internet service has ‘nutrition labels’ now. Here’s how to use them.” by Shira Ovide (April 12, 2024) – New FCC requirement for clear labeling is a step forward, but will terms & conditions remain fuzzy anyway?

Starting this week, most companies [including Xfinity, Spectrum, Optimum, Cox, AT&T and Verizon] that sell internet service must show you a standard list of information — modeled on the nutrition labels on packaged food — that includes the monthly cost, internet speeds you should expect and extra fees for things like installation, renting a modem and taxes.

… you’re looking to click [online] on “broadband facts.” That’s the FCC-mandated information labels.

Almost half of the internet information labels are not complying so far with the FCC’s disclosure requirements, according to Sascha Meinrath, a Penn State University telecommunications professor who helped analyze information labels this week.