Business phone and internet bills mix government taxes, regulatory funds, and fees the carrier made up, often with similar names. Search the charge on your bill to see what it is, whether it is negotiable, and what to check.
Also billed as: MRC, service charges, plan charges, line charges
The base price for each line, circuit, seat, or bundle, charged every month whether it is used or not.
What to do: The biggest lever on most bills. Benchmark it against current market pricing, and check that every line still has a person or device behind it.
Also billed as: expired contract, holdover rate, off-contract pricing
When a term agreement ends, many carriers move the service to a higher standard rate until a new term is signed.
What to do: Find the end date on every agreement. An expired term is often the easiest money on the bill to recover.
Also billed as: admin fee, administrative cost recovery, account maintenance fee
A charge the carrier created to recover its own costs. It is not a government tax or fee, even though it sits near them on the bill.
What to do: Ask for it to be waived or capped when you sign or renew. Get the answer in the contract.
Also billed as: regulatory programs fee, federal regulatory recovery fee, regulatory compliance fee
Another carrier-created charge. The name sounds official, but no regulator requires the carrier to bill it.
What to do: Negotiable at signing and renewal. Compare it across providers, because some do not charge it at all.
Also billed as: property tax allotment, gross receipts recovery
The carrier passing along part of its own taxes. It is a pricing decision, not a tax on you.
What to do: Treat it as part of the price when you compare quotes, and ask for it to be removed or capped.
Also billed as: network access charge, infrastructure fee, cost recovery charge
A carrier-defined fee that is usually part of the effective price of the service, listed separately.
What to do: Add it to the monthly rate when benchmarking. A low headline rate with a large access fee is not a low rate.
Also billed as: FUSF, USF, federal universal service charge
An FCC program funded by a percentage the carrier applies to the interstate and international portion of telecom charges. The FCC resets the percentage every quarter.
What to do: You cannot negotiate the rate, but check what it is applied to. Broadband internet access is not assessable, and a carrier applying it to the whole bill is overcharging.
Also billed as: state USF, state high cost fund
The state-level version of the federal fund, set by each state's utility commission.
What to do: Not negotiable. Check that it is only applied in the states where you actually have service.
Also billed as: FET, federal excise tax on local service
A 3% federal tax on local-only telephone service.
What to do: Nonprofit hospitals and schools, state and local governments, and a few others are exempt. If you qualify, send the carrier an exemption certificate and ask for credits.
Also billed as: sales tax, municipal tax, telecom excise tax
Taxes set by your state, county, or city and collected by the carrier.
What to do: Not negotiable, but tax-exempt organizations should confirm an exemption certificate is on file and applied to every account.
Also billed as: emergency service fee, 911 surcharge, E911
A government fee, usually charged per line or per number, that funds emergency call centers.
What to do: Not negotiable per line, but you pay it on every line. Unused lines cost you the fee along with the line.
Also billed as: SLC, federal access charge, end user common line charge
An FCC-capped charge on traditional landlines that recovers part of the cost of the local phone line.
What to do: Not negotiable, but it goes away when the copper line does. Count how many you are paying for.
Also billed as: TRS, relay service fee
A fund that supports phone service for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech-impaired.
What to do: A pass-through set by regulators. Nothing to negotiate.
Also billed as: cable franchise fee, right-of-way fee, PEG fee
Fees the local government charges providers for using public rights-of-way, passed through on cable and some voice and data services.
What to do: Set by the municipality. Nothing to negotiate.
Also billed as: zombie lines, inactive numbers, orphaned circuits
Lines, circuits, and numbers still billing after the person, office, alarm, or fax machine behind them is gone.
What to do: Inventory every line and circuit against something that uses it, then disconnect the rest. Often the single largest finding.
Also billed as: POTS lines, business lines, 1FB, B1 lines
Traditional copper phone lines. Carriers are retiring copper and raising what remains, often steeply.
What to do: Find what each line does first: fire alarm, elevator, security, fax. Then price the replacements. The POTS Replacement Assessment is the fast first pass.
Also billed as: wire maintenance plan, inside wiring protection
An optional plan covering repairs to the wiring inside your building.
What to do: Rarely needed in a modern office, and easy to cancel. Check whether you have it on lines you no longer use.
Also billed as: additional listing, white pages listing, non-published number fee
Charges for extra phone directory listings, or to keep a number unlisted.
What to do: Usually unnecessary today. Remove them.
Also billed as: call forwarding, voicemail, hunt groups, caller ID, feature package
Per-line features billed on top of the line, sometimes duplicated by features your phone system already has.
What to do: Compare what is billed against what the phone system actually uses, and remove the duplicates.
Also billed as: long distance, per-minute charges, data overage, international usage
Charges for usage beyond what the plan includes.
What to do: Recurring overage means the plan is the wrong size. Right-size it, or move to pooled or unlimited plans.
Also billed as: minimum spend, shortfall charge, volume commitment
A penalty when total spend falls below the amount committed in the contract.
What to do: Check commitments before you reduce services with the same carrier, and renegotiate them at renewal.
Also billed as: modem rental, router lease, CPE charge, set-top box
Monthly rent for equipment the carrier provides.
What to do: Compare against buying the equipment, and look for rentals on equipment that was returned or replaced long ago.
Also billed as: static IP fee, IP block charge
A monthly charge for fixed internet addresses on a business connection.
What to do: Check that you still need the size of block you pay for. Often included for free in a new agreement.
Also billed as: 800 number, toll-free service, 8XX
Monthly charges and per-minute rates for toll-free numbers.
What to do: Find the numbers nobody calls anymore. Keep the ones on printed material, and move the rest to a cheaper provider or cancel them.
Also billed as: late fee, finance charge, past due charge
Penalties for payments received after the due date.
What to do: Usually waived on request, especially when the cause was a billing or address problem. Fix the cause.
Also billed as: paper bill fee, printed statement charge
A charge for mailing a printed bill.
What to do: Switch to electronic billing, and make sure the bills go to an inbox someone actually reads.
Also billed as: ETF, termination liability, cancellation fee
What the contract says you owe if you leave before the term ends.
What to do: Read the clause before you commit elsewhere. Some new providers will buy out the remaining term, and some fees are negotiable at renewal.
Also billed as: device insurance, handset protection, equipment protection plan
Per-line insurance on mobile devices, often added at activation and never reviewed.
What to do: Compare the monthly cost across all lines against what replacing devices actually costs you.
Also billed as: suspended lines, spare lines, unused mobile
Mobile lines kept active or suspended after the person left the organization.
What to do: Match every line to a current employee. Suspended lines often still bill.
No match. Send us the bill and we will tell you what it is: Bill Analysis.
A general guide, not tax or legal advice. Names vary by carrier, and the same charge can appear under several names.
Three kinds of charge, three different moves.
Fees the carrier created and every service charge. Benchmark them, negotiate them at signing and renewal, and remove what nobody uses.
Taxes and regulatory funds you cannot negotiate, but that are often applied to the wrong base, the wrong state, or lines that should not exist.
Set by government. The only way to pay less is to have fewer of whatever they are charged on.
Anything the carrier created itself: administrative, regulatory cost recovery, and property tax recovery fees, network access fees, and every service charge, feature, and equipment rental. Government taxes and regulatory funds are not negotiable, but they are often applied to the wrong base or to lines you no longer use.
No. Despite the name, it is a charge the carrier created to recover its own costs, and no regulator requires it. That makes it negotiable at signing and renewal.
The FCC sets the contribution percentage each quarter, and it has risen as traditional phone revenue has shrunk. You cannot negotiate it, but it applies only to the interstate and international portion of telecom service. Broadband internet access is not assessable.
Find the lines and circuits with nothing behind them, and the contracts that expired and rolled to month-to-month rates. Those two alone account for much of what a bill analysis finds.