Important information for TWN business line users

The FCC's
PICC Charge

Introduction

This document describes actions the FCC has taken to:

The increased competition resulting from the FCC's decisions will benefit consumers by producing lower rates, greater choice, and improved service. The decisions deal with access charges paid by long distance companies to local telephone companies and certain charges from local telephone companies that appear on your monthly bill.

  Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge

 What is the Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge?

The Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge is a new way that long distance companies are charged access charges by local telephone companies. Instead of paying a higher charge per minute, the long distance companies now pay to local telephone companies a flat-rated, per-telephone line charge plus a lower charge per minute.

As noted above, the maximum subscriber line charges do not recover all of the interstate portion of the local loop costs. In the past, that shortfall has been recovered through the per-minute access charges paid by the long distance companies. The Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge is designed to recover the local telephone companies' interstate local loop costs not recovered through subscriber line charges. The Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge rates will vary from state to state based on the actual cost of providing local phone service in each area.

A long distance company pays this charge for each residential and business telephone line presubscribed to that long distance company. If a consumer or business has not selected a long distance company for its telephone lines, the local telephone company may bill the consumer or business for the Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge.

As a larger percentage of access charges are recovered through monthly per-line charges, the per-minute access charges paid by the long distance companies decrease. Consumers should therefore expect to continue to see reductions in the per-minute rates they pay for long distance calls.

This Pic charge was formed by the FCC and is a mandated charge, which is $4.31 per month, per line including the first line signed up. This is only for multi-lined business.

Universal Service Fund

The FCC has established a Universal Service Fund (USF) that provides telecommunications services to customers in rural areas, low-income customers and advanced services, such as Internet access to schools, libraries and health care providers. 

AT&T recovers this contribution, and its associated administrative costs, through a "Universal Connectivity Charge". The monthly fees are reflected in the Regulatory Fees Section of your AT&T business bill. AT&T’ has recently decided to recoup the increased expense, plus costs of administering the program, the Universal Connectivity Charge at 8.00 % of total discounted Interstate and International charges on all bills issued on or after February 1, 2001. 

With Tipmont/TWN long distance, the Universal Service Fund is only a 5.536% tax of the total monthly usage. This is a significant savings over AT&T!