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This fee is a monthly charge to customers or other telephone companies by a local telephone company for the use of its local network. Local exchange companies incur significant costs to provide service to their customers. The access revenues that local exchange companies receive from long distance companies help offset some of those costs to keep the cost of local service affordable. As the costs are associated with local service, the FCC determined that it was appropriate to allow local exchange carriers to recover a portion of the lost access revenues from their customers. The FCC’s order provided that only incumbent local exchange carriers may recover a portion of the lost access revenues from an ARC charge. While cable companies will also see access reductions, no provision was made to permit cable companies to implement an ARC charge.

To help local governments pay for emergency services such as fire and rescue

This is the mechanism for funding the federal Universal Service Fund (USF). The FUSF charge is assessed to all telecommunications companies with interstate operations. The amount collected through this charge funds telecommunications services’ discounts to schools, libraries, rural health care providers, and low-income customers; it also provides funds to local telephone companies that serve rural, insular, and high-cost areas. The FCC permits telecommunications companies that pay the charge to recover it from their customers.

This is a 3 percent Federal Tax which applies only to local service billed separately from long distance service. It is 3% of all billed local services.

Taxes may be imposed by state, local, and municipal governments on goods and services, including phone service.

A franchise fee is a charge collected by your cable provider on behalf of your local city/county government. The Federal Government allows local governments to charge a percentage per cable subscriber in the form of a franchise fee. Local governments are able to collect this fee because cable television providers utilize public rights-of-way to deliver their services.

This charge is not a government-mandated fee and will increase from time to time. It is based on the costs of providing the local broadcast stations that we carry on our cable systems in each area. These costs include the fees that the broadcast stations charge us to carry them on our cable systems, which are among our largest increasing costs.

It is a monthly charge allowed by the FCC. It is designed to help local telephone companies recover a portion of the costs associated with providing long distance carriers with access to the local phone network. Local telephone companies assess the SLC to recover interstate costs associated with the local loop that are not recovered elsewhere. The Subscriber Line Charge (SLC) and the Presubscribed Interstate Carrier Charge (PICC) were combined by the FCC effective July 2000 under the name SLC. The current maximum SLC is $6.50 per Residential and Single Business line, and $9.20 per Multi-business line.