UNDERSTANDING THE CHARGES ON YOUR PHONE BILL
• Alaska Universal Fund (AUSF) – 10.0%
The fund is a support mechanism designed to compensate the Local Exchange Carrier from the reductions in access charge revenues and for fulfilling the Carrier of Last Resort, a telecommunications company that is required to provide service to any customer in a service area upon request even if serving the customer would not be economically viable at prevailing rates.
This fund also supports DEM Weighting for certain small local exchange companies with high switching costs. (Dial Equipment Minutes – A measure of switch usage)
• Universal Access Surcharge - $0.01 All Telephone, VOIP and Wireless Lines
For Telecommunications Relay Service centers that transmit and translate calls between hearing individuals and individuals who are hearing or speech impaired.
• Federal Excise Tax – 3%
Mandated by the federal government.
• City Sales Tax – 4%
City of Adak local tax collected and sent to the city.
• Regulatory Cost Charges – 1.223%
Charge to fund the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
• Network Access Fee - $5.75
All local telephone service providers must charge the NAF. Recovers a portion of the cost of the “local loop” (i.e. the wires and associated local network facilities that connect a customer to a local telephone service providers central office switch)
• Subscriber Line Charge - $6.50, Res/Single Business, $9.20 Multi Business
Authorized by the FCC, this flat monthly charge allows local telephone service providers to be compensated for a portion of the costs associated with the installation and maintenance of the telephone wires, poles and other facilities that link homes to the telephone network.
• Access Recovery Charge - $3.00 Single Business, $3.00 Multi Business
Enables the telephone company to recover from end user customers a limited portion of revenues lost due to FCC mandated reductions in intercarrier payments.
• Local Monthly Service
This is a flat monthly charge which customers pay for local telephone service.
$40.60 Residential
$53.60 Single Business/Multi Business
$28.60 Business Data Line