This spring has seen frequent announcements of rate and fee increases from AT&T. On April 16, AT&T announced another round of such changes. First, the per-call surcharge on AT&T's 10¢ Offer long distance plan is increasing by 20¢ to 69¢ for all state-to-state calls and for intrastate calls in Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Oregon. Second, subscribers to AT&T's Value Rate Plan long distance plan will soon see a new $3.95 Monthly Recurring Charge (MRC) added to their bills. The fee will be assessed each month whether a long distance call is placed or not. Finally, subscribers to AT&T's bundled local and long distance plans in Nevada will be seeing a number of fee increases. The MRC on the AT&T One Rate Local, One Rate USA, and One Rate Advantage plans will increase by $2.00 to $33.95, $59.95, and $64.95, respectively. The MRC on the AT&T One Rate State plan will increase by $3.00 to $48.95. All of these rate and fee increases will become effective May 1, 2006. For more information on these changes, click here. As we mentioned in the March 17 edition of TRACNotes, the continued increases in the cost of AT&T local service plans outside of the 13-state SBC service area has made AT&T local service plans significantly more expensive than comparable local service plans offered by other phone companies. This latest round of increases in Nevada only serves to reinforce our advice to affected subscribers to ?bail now!?

Source: Telecommunications Research and Action Center. http://www.trac.org