News about service fees

T-Mobile raised its Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery fees effective Oct. 12, with voice lines now paying $5.49 a month instead of $4.49 and mobile internet lines paying $2.60 instead of $2.10. The big three US carriers, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, have all added similar fee increases over roughly the past year and a half, and these add-on charges are not covered by multi-year price guarantees on the plan itself. Analyst Roger Entner argues that spreading out small increases is a poor strategy, though he says modest hikes rarely prompt customers to switch carriers. Carriers have also raised prices on legacy plans and moved some T-Mobile customers to new plans with increases of up to $6 per line, while price guarantees have become less common.