Dialing For Dollars: The Price of Gas?
Sometimes I'm forced to hire a sitter for Jango, my 85-pound golden retriever. Last week I sojourned to 
San Francisco to deliver an OMMA addressable television lecture -- eleven-year-old son in tow -- and my wife off to Saratoga visiting friends. When I contacted our reliable sitter for the usual -- three walks and an overnight -- she mumbled to me (shoulders slumped, eyes grounded) that there would be a price increase. Her $65 a day all-inclusive rate was mushrooming to $100. "Why?" I asked. "The price of gas," she guzzled.
I mention this incident because I just received my monthly home office Verizon landline statement. Normally, I pay $57.07. This month I topped $60. The notice suggested that I check page 3 for "new charges." I did. but didn't see any indication of why I would be paying premium this month. Do you?
My dog sitter only lives one mile from my house. Three roundtrips a day equals six miles of travel. Utilizing my sitter's rationalized commutations, I figured Verizon's pricing, though to a lesser degree, must be based upon the transport of digital "optional service" minutes by the truck load. Then I scrutinized the bill more closely. Under the "Verizon Basic Local Services" plan, which includes monthly charge for dial tone ($.00) and touch tone ($.00) I pay surcharge and taxes of $8.51 for services I do not receive nor am I billed for. For the Verizon Optional Services, which include "the essentials" - phone service -- and costs $44.99, I pay a surcharge and taxes of $7.17.
Must be the gas.
Recent TV Board Articles
-
Q&A With Media Behavior Institute's Alice K. Sylvester May 12, 9:33 p.m.
Alice Sylvester started her career in ad agencies before joining Media Behavior Institute as COO. Her ...
-
Upfront 2013: Attack Of The Shrimp-Eaters May 10, 4:11 p.m.
Let’s consider the traditional upfront week. Are its days numbered? If not, they ought to be. ...
-
Pivot TV Targets The Next Greatest Generation May 8, 9:28 a.m.
Pivot TV, Participant Media’s new venture into television, is apt to change the single-screen television paradigm ...
-
'Mad Men' And The Boston Marathon Bombing May 7, 12:56 p.m.
Watching “Man Men,” always a disquieting experience, was more unsettling than usual on April 28, coming ...
-
Are Online Versions Of 'All My Children' & 'One Life To Live' TV Game-Changers? May 3, 3:01 p.m.
Media history was made earlier this week when, for the first time, two broadcast series that ...
-
Cross-Platform Measurement, With Help From CIMM May 2, 1:54 p.m.
One of the most frenetic areas of measurement development today is in cross platform. Creative and ...
-
Do Sweeps Make Sense In The Age Of TV Anytime? April 26, 9:52 a.m.
Industry observers have been questioning the value and wisdom of the three traditional sweeps periods (four ...
-
Big-Data Issues Discussed At Conference April 25, 9:29 a.m.
Want to know what keeps CMOs awake at night? Call it revenge of the nerds, but ...
-
TV's Missing Middle Class April 23, 1:32 p.m.
Americans who love “Downton Abbey” and its penetrating observations on British class conflict are less comfortable ...
-
'A' Is For 'Television' April 22, 12:03 p.m.
If Apple’s impact on the mobile phone industry is duplicated – even partially – when Apple ...
Be the first to comment on "Dialing For Dollars: The Price of Gas?"
Leave a Comment