I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore. Fresh from researching the broadband market in the United Kingdom, I returned to my own corner of the United States and looked over my accounts. And sure enough, the broadband items on my credit card bills for the summer past made no sense at all.

Years ago, when I signed up for Verizon Online broadband, the service was priced at $35. Somewhere along the line that amount crept up to $37.95. But I've never been billed for that amount, and this summer, the bills went up and down like the mercury in my thermometer. And although I've heard Verizon's reasoning and understand what they're saying, I still see no reason to accept it.

	The story of this random series of billings came to light only at the end of a rather frustrating phone call to Verizon's customer support.

Summer Billing
I have fond memories of May. On the 13th of that month, I was billed $40.89 for my broadband service. I remember this because I'd been billed $40.89 all year up until that point, and I was getting used to it. It was also the last time my bill made sense.

On June 13, the broadband charge went up to $42.51. For a moment, I wondered whether I'd gone over my minutes or done any roaming that month, but then I remembered that this wasn't phone service or cellular phone service; it was a flat-rate, unlimited DSL account. It should be a regular amount per month.

Then a week later, Verizon had billed me a second time, this time for $12.76. My total in Verizon invoices for June came to $55.27. That's quite a leap from the $40.89 the previous month. And the bill on the 22nd of the following month came to $41.76.

So, over three consecutive months, bills for exactly the same service totaled $40.89, $55.27, and $41.76. Do you see a pattern emerging here? Because I don't, and if there is one, it would take a beautiful mind to see it.

	Unlike electricity, water, and phone service, it's not a metered utility. In this respect, broadband is comparable to sewage and garbage disposal.

My first recourse was to look at the online register of bills stored in the account area when I log on to Verizon Online's site, but due to a temporary blip, all I saw when I clicked on that link was a white page with the Times Roman text Page could not be built -- module may not support this view.

An open letter to Verizon Online
The story of this random series of billings came to light only at the end of a rather frustrating phone call to Verizon's customer support. First, Verizon had decided to change its billing cycle in June; and second, it was passing on a different amount of Federal Universal Service Fund charges for a couple of months, so my bill was going to vary a little. That was it. It was nonsense, but that was the excuse.

I have the greatest of respect for front-line support people, so I didn't share any of what I'm about to write about with them. They were unable to forward me to decision-makers responsible for this customer-unfriendly billing cycle, and it's those guys who deserve to get grief. So assuming that Verizon Online's marketing and accounts people are able and willing to read, this is for them:

What grudge do you hold against your customers? How exactly do you expect us to budget for your service over the expensive summer months when your monthly bills for an unmetered service rise by almost $15 between June and July, then drop by nearly $14 into August, all without announcement?

If you can find a service that doesn't pull the kind of nonsense we've been seeing from Verizon Online these past couple of years--and this summer in particular--let's jump ship and show everybody what we think of silly billing.

If anybody at Verizon has a straight answer for that question, please let me know. And let your beleaguered customer support people know too, because they're suffering out there.

Here, let me pay your taxes
Even if Verizon Online had not chosen to change its billing cycles midsummer, the sum it charged its customers would still have been uneven. That's because they are passing on a series of taxes directly to their customers. I've written about Verizon's mealy-mouthed excuses for passing on bits of their tax bill before (see Verizon: good telco, bad telco from 2005), but I'll summarize the high points.

Periodically, Verizon Online sends out a blast e-mail to its customers explaining that, due to circumstances outside their control, various states impose a tax against them. A typically opaque explanation reads like this:

This fee is being charged because your state instructed carriers that the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act does not prohibit their state from taxing DSL, and carriers should impose taxes on the DSL circuits that Verizon Online must purchase in order to provide you with Verizon Online DSL service.

To paraphrase that: We can make you pay part of our tax bill because we're Verizon.

I think that's baloney. Actually, I think it's worse than that, but I can't use the term I really want to use. It seems pretty clear at this point that broadband access is fast becoming a public utility. But unlike electricity, water, and phone service, it's not a metered utility. In this respect, broadband is comparable to sewage and garbage disposal. You can use these services as much as you like, within reason, for the same recurring fee. (Another similarity is that something about all three of these services stinks. In the case of broadband, it's the billing.)

Unmetered utilities are billed in regular increments so that customers can budget around them. Heck, even metered utilities provide budget plans in regular increments, with adjustments if you use more or less over the course of a year. Why should broadband be any different? If Verizon Online has to pay a bit extra in some states during some months, that's the cost of doing business. Suck it up. Every other business has to.

How the other half lives
Even though my take on broadband billing seemed to make sense, I wondered if expecting it to happen that way was hopelessly utopian. Then I listened in on an exchange between a U.K. broadband customer and his provider, Tiscali. This changed my mind completely. This customer had signed up for unmetered 2.3Mbps broadband from Tiscali for £14.99 per month in early June. The self-install package arrived the following week and service began. In early August, his bill arrived for £25.99. This figure was far higher than the one quoted, so he called the company. The customer service rep knew from Caller ID who was calling and had the account details ready. When challenged, the rep explained that the amount was for the almost two months the service had been active. From that point on, the bill would appear on his credit card statement at £14.99 per month.

I gasped. The bill wasn't going to be bloated with surcharges to some random figure like £16.23 or £15.43. Tiscali had quoted a monthly rate of £14.99, and that's how much they were going to charge every month.

You know, those Limeys may have lost face a few hundred years ago with arbitrary taxes on stamps and tea, but they seem to have pulled their act together pretty well since then.

Join the campaign
So, Verizon Online customers, I'd like you to join me in a campaign for straightforward billing. If you can find a service that doesn't pull the kind of nonsense we've been seeing from Verizon Online these past couple of years--and this summer in particular--let's jump ship and show everybody what we think of silly billing.

As for you, Verizon, why should we pay part of your tax bill as a separate line item from the service we signed up for? Why does your tax recovery charge change from month to month anyway? Why don't you respect your customers enough to bill them in regular amounts and at regular times? And most of all, if you don't act that way, why do you think you deserve our business?

Mad as hell with your network provider, and not going to take this anymore? Or are you a network provider who's mad as hell at being put on the spot? Let Matt Lake have the full force of your wrath in the Feedback section below. Just keep it clean.