Why Are Overseas Communications Prices, from Wireless to Broadband, a Fraction of what We Are Charged in America? Part III and Update.

This is PART 3 of the IRREGULATORS New Series — The New and Improved 2025 Plan for Our Digital Future — 2025 Is Our Year — Not Theirs.

Over $250 a month in Overcharging for a Triple Play and Wireless?

Continuous rate increases proves there is no competition and yet the FCC claims prices are going down:

• PART 1 Why Are We Giving Billions in Government Subsidies to Wealthy Phone and Cable Companies for Broadband? Welcome to the Questions Nobody Wants to Talk About.
• PART 2 FCC Claims Prices for Broadband and Wireless Went Down. Garbage in Equals How to Manipulate Public Policies.
• PART 2 UPDATE Memo to the FCC: “Real Prices” — Keep Going Up.

NOTE: As of this writing, 1 Euro =has been $1.03 to $1.04 Dollars, a wash. So please consider 3% -4% adjustment to the printed numbers.

Welcome to the Smackdown: America is being overcharged, big time.

That’s right. The top line shows about $320 for a US Triple Play and 5G mobile broadband service vs the French Free Telecom’s 39.99 Euros, (which goes to 49.99 in a year); about $40-$50 bucks, US. We note that in 2019, Consumer Reports found that the average triple play in America was about $220.00 a month, and there have been multiple rate increases since then.

The Chart above continues our previous analysis of the prices for wireless and the double and triple play, including cable TV, phone, internet and broadband.

We previously covered this topic and asked why is America is paying multiples of other countries overseas, such as the EU countries. “No Gimmicks” Vs America Is Getting Screwed. The Free French Telecom Fiber Optic Triple Play vs Spectrum-NYC Prices.

Welcome to Smack down:

Spectrum: On the left we have a bill for the February 2025 Spectrum-Charter Brooklyn NY for $228.76. This is the same service that has been at this location since 1981, and the wiring has been written off.

In 2012, this triple play was advertised for $89.99 and featured phone, broadband-internet and cable TV.

• Time Warner Cable’s Advertised $89.99 Triple Play: Now $190.77. What the F@$#X$!? You can never, ever get the advertised price because it doesn’t include many of the fixed costs, like the set top box, not to mention it is littered with pass-throughs of the company’s taxes and fees, including the cable franchise fees

As we discussed then, after 1 year, the price went up almost double the original price. And there have been continuous slow increases.

Last month, the Spectrum bill claims there is a discount of $15 dollars that will be leaving, bringing the total to about $243.00 but there will also be increases in all taxes, fess and surcharges.

French Free Telecom: is the bill on the right. We started with a bill via a senior American couple, living in France and the recently sent a link to this new promotion

Smack down — Just compare the 2 offerings.

$40 dollars, rounded, for the Free Telecom Triple play and wireless is included. (Wireless is sold separately for $19.99 for 350 gigs, cost per gig, $.06 cents.)

In America the higher volume users are paying about $4-$1.60; however, this does not include all of the added taxes, fees and surcharges. On the low user end,. Spectrum has a service for $14.00 per gig.

• Why are we being charged ‘per gig’ vs just paying as you go?
• Why are all of the usage always rounded up?
• Why can the wireless companies charge the moment after you dial, even if the call doesn’t go through?
• And we all know that the term “unlimited” is made up. Where’s the regulators to correct this?

Data Caps on Mobile Services: Slowdown after you reach the limit.

This is a chart of the services provided by the US wireless companies, and the cost per Gig is exceptionally high at the low end. Those who purchase ‘bargain’ services or are considered low cost, can have a very high cost per gig, and thus the amount of data that is used is quite limited.

The findings from this report revealed:

• There are only 3 primary wireless providers in the US: AT&T, Verizon or T-mobile.
• Overseas studies of wireless competition revealed that markets with 3 or less providers are usually paying multiples of what customers pay with 4 or more primary wireless networks.
• Thus, there is not enough competition in America and the overwhelming majority of companies are ‘MVNO’s resellers of AT&T, Verizon or T-mobile. For example, Comcast, Charter-Spectrum and Cox all resell Verizon Wireless,
• The chart above shows that the ‘caps’ on the amount of data a customer gets or can get makes the low end of service users pay exorbitant amounts per gig.
• Spectrum had a service in NY that costs $14 per gig, not counting taxes, fees and other charges on top of it.

What a scam. The Free Telecom wireless service also has a ‘data cap’, which they call “fair use”. The Wireless 350 Gig service is sold separately for 19.99 Euros — and there are ‘data caps’, just like the US… except with an additional 300 Gigs to use, vs the high cap in the US of 50 Gigs.

“The Free package at €19.99 includes 350 GB of mobile internet usable in metropolitan France, depending on the networks available in the area. Once the package is used up, you can continue to use mobile internet, but the speed is reduced (also called “fair use”)”.

If this was included in the previous chart, the top in the US is around 50Gigs. With 350Gigs, it would be 7 times taller and “off the charts” as it is said.

America’s ACP low-income subsidy of $30 a month went to 23 million families, but the FCC report showed that it only covered about 25% of the total expense paid, which included fees for the modem or even the Cost Recovery charge, a junk fee.

The offering from Free is similar to other EU countries and America should be ashamed that we did not create affordable broadband, not with government subsidies but with competition.

And where is the FCC and Chairman Brendan Carr’s actions over the last 4 years to examine how this differential was created and why America’s prices are out of control?

According to newly appointed FCC Chairman, Brendan Carr, in his 2024 Net Neutrality ‘dissenting view’, he wrote:

“In real terms, the prices for Internet services have dropped by about 9% since the beginning of 2018, according to BLS CPI data. On the mobile broadband side alone, real prices have dropped by roughly 18% since 2017, according to BLS and industry data. And for the most popular broadband speed tiers, real prices are down 54%, and for the fastest broadband speed tiers, prices are down 55%, over the past 8 years, according to BLS and industry data.”

To summarize as bullet points, “in real terms, the prices for”

• Internet services dropped by about 9% since the beginning of 2018,
• Mobile broadband prices have dropped by roughly 18% since 2017,
• Most popular broadband speed tiers, prices are down 54%,
• Fastest broadband speed tiers, prices are down 55%, over the past 8 years,
• “Real prices”! Did you know you are not paying ‘Real Prices’?

IRREGULATORS Definition of “Real Prices”: From this point forward: Real Prices are the price that appear on your bills and you pay them. It is not the use of imaginary numbers or those, including government agencies or ‘experts’, who actually do not use actual bills in their analysis.

Moreover, many will discuss that what a customer pay for in 2025 for broadband has high speeds and more “gigs”.

This is based on the concept of “Value”, where what the customer paid for added more gigs or added speed shows the prices went down because the customer got more.

It is not the actual price that a customer paid, that is printed on the bill. Bur the converse of this is — why didn’t prices go down? The cost to offer service also went down, and at least for Verizon and the fiber, Verizon had wireline utility customers pay for the network upgrades, where’s the financial recognition of these investments?

• If the expenses to deploy the networks for the wireless companies was charged to the wireline state utility construction budgets, where are the payments back to the US utility?
• Or worse, if the prices are tied to the expenses and if the expenses go down so should the cost to offer the service?
• Moreover, the argument is that the prices are not tied to the actual costs because of deregulation that was granted to the companies based on commitments made to do upgrades then didn’t do it. On the wireline side, there were multiple rate increases to fund the construction. Whty didn’t the state just halt the rate increases and then remove the additions to the bills for funding these build outs. And, why did the state not just remove the deregulation? Or more importantly, have the companies refund the additional monies collected for networks that never showed up?

There’s lots of these caveats but in the end, the idea that overseas, the regulators did not let this kind of massive overcharging occur, is really at the core of this story.

In the US, the FCC has been captured by the monopolies that they are supposed to be providing oversight over for the public good.

As we continue, it will become clear at just how America has been harmed, from being overcharged thousands of dollars a year, to the creation of the Digital Divide..

Part IV: More answers to the questions…