New and higher charges by Ooma

[Telo_BK]

Ooma is pocketing more of my money now that the economy has improved. I have Premiere paid annually, but they have raised the monthly portion of my bill 25% in the past 6 months. These are the same fees paid by users of their "free" telephone service, I understand. I'm second-guessing my recommendation of this outfit to many friends. Here's the example

Here in metro Phoenix AZ we pay this as-of 2018-01-11:
Sales Tax: $0.37 (State local tax on the amount of $4.57)
Regulatory Compliance Fee: $1.49 (Ooma charges this and keeps it)
911 Service Fee: $1.00 (Ooma pays this to gov. to support regional 911 service infrastructure)
Local Interconnection Recovery Fee: $2.00 (Ooma charges this and keeps it)
State 911: $0.20? (New- why is it collected? can't find it on the web)
State USF: $0.12 (Mandated by FCC to support phone service for needy folks)
Total: $5.18


And it was this on 2017-07-16:
Regulatory Compliance Fee: $1.98 (Optional, charged for "cost recovery" - that is, cost of doing business)
911 Service Fee: $1.79
Federal Universal Service Charge and Regulatory Fees: $0.32 (Actual taxes)
Total: $4.09

Here are Ooma's explanations of these fees:
LIRF- Local Interconnect Recovery Fee
Ooma uses this fee to recover certain costs associated with the interconnection of its VoIP calling platform with traditional Public Switched Telephone Networks, including media transcoding costs and signaling translation costs, necessary to support local calling. (They didn't used to charge this, but still managed to afford to encode my voice and interconnected to the networks to make Ooma work with the whole rest of the telephone network in order to provide a service that people would pay-for)

Regulatory Compliance Fee: Ooma uses this fee to recover certain of Ooma’s costs associated with compliance with regulatory, legal and tax requirements including: (1) fees Ooma is required to pay to support the TRS fund, which supports facilities and services used to provide telecommunications services for individuals with hearing or speech disabilities; (2) the portion of the annual regulatory fees assessed on Ooma by the Federal Communications Commission that Ooma does not recover through Ooma's Federal Universal Service Charge and Regulatory Fees (described below); (3) costs Ooma incurs administering, billing, collecting and making required tax and regulatory filings and complying with certain federal regulatory obligations; (4) regulatory surcharges Ooma pays to the providers of telecommunications that Ooma uses to provide its services. (Ooma always had to pay fees to the government and to its partners to provide their service, just like I have to pay for a car to go to work, and taxes for the roads, but I don't charge my employer for that.)

This changes the value proposition for a service that imposes a 600mSec delay on conversations, requiring a different way of talking on the telephone to avoid interrupting. I measured it using an impulse signal, having worked in telecom engineering years ago. I knew when they went public that their investor's insatiable demand for higher profits would drive them to the point they'd become un-competitive. The poor CEO and the board have to figure out how to milk more profit from a service that can't improve. The only way is by charging more. When will Ooma's customer numbers begin to decline sharply?

[jafriede]

I noticed the same thing. The fees are now approaching twice the base bill of $9.99. Why don't they just be honest and raise the monthly price to include the fees instead of pretending it's still $9.99.

[xela]

Same here.... quietly keeps coming up.

[focuspuller]

Look at where the extra charges are....Fed. charges are not controlled by OOMA.

[jake20]

so is it cheaper to pay for Premiere monthly vs Paying upfront for Premiere the year?

[andyross]

There will be local taxes and fees either way. Even with the annual Premiere, you do get the monthly charge. If you pay Premiere monthly, you may end up with additional sales taxes added on each month, which will probably add up more than the annual.

[lmacmil]

When I signed up for Premier a few weeks ago, I was billed the $119.88 annual charge plus $.85 for my state utility receipts tax and $.06 federal regulatory fee. The only sales tax was on the shipping charge for the free HD3 handset I received.

[sengsational]

They're getting more bold...making larger increments. Greedy, I suppose. I'm not sure how many people believe that what they pay in taxes and fees are actually why they raise the price...they do it because they figure they can get away with it.

[murphy]

Have they caught up with Verizon yet?

The fees on my Verizon landline are:

Federal Excise tax $0.52
Telecommunications relay service $0.08
E911 $1.65
PA Gross receipts tax surcharge $0.50
Federal subscriber line and access recovery charge $7.60
Federal Universal Service Fee $1.85

Total $12.20

The dial tone line itself is $9.40

The taxes and fees are more than the line charge!!!

[oomamaniacal]

The taxes and fees for Vonage North America plan is $14.39/mo., for my area. Plus the plan itself costs $24.99.