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Old 07-22-2015, 10:57 AM   #1
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Cell phone taxes

Anyone here (especially you full timers, like myself) notice that their cell phone bill changes every month?? AT&T says it's because I move from state to state and therefore the taxes are different each month.

My "official" state of residence is South Dakota and I'd think that's the state in which I pay cell phone taxes. Shouldn't it??

WTF???

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Old 07-22-2015, 11:01 AM   #2
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I would think the taxes only apply to the state where purchased. Sounds like a rip off. More AT&T crap. Would not have them. Later RJD
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Old 07-22-2015, 11:04 AM   #3
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Mine does the same thing and my house never moves. We have unlimited calling/texting and have never gone over on data.
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Old 07-22-2015, 11:37 AM   #4
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We use pay as you go. We use about $100 a year since it's prepaid it doesn't change for us.
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Old 07-22-2015, 11:42 AM   #5
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Have you compared monthly bills? Where are the differences coming from?
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Old 07-22-2015, 11:50 AM   #6
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There have been several stories on TV about cell phone bills and charges made and if you don't catch you keep paying. Later RJD
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Old 07-22-2015, 02:10 PM   #7
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Have you compared monthly bills? Where are the differences coming from?
Have you looked at the totally CONVOLUTED bill from ANY vendor? Even the CS people have trouble figuring them out.

AT&T had better watch out..... I paid for my devices up front so have no contracts. I really like the service; they just can't (won't) tell me why the bill varies by up to $30 each month; so I may have to kiss them good bye


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Old 07-22-2015, 02:16 PM   #8
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Mine does the same thing and my house never moves. We have unlimited calling/texting and have never gone over on data.
Well, the CS person hemmed an hawed all over the place and never did properly answer the question. Signed up for service in NV so I'd think all my state taxes/fees would be from that state; NOT where I happened to be when I made the calls.

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Old 07-22-2015, 02:31 PM   #9
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You sa $30 of unexplained charges. Better be calling someone back and ask for a supervisor and have him explain and if he cant' then better remove or else you be moving on. May want to report to the FCC. At&T has confessed they can not explain some of the charges per a Tv news inquire. Later RJD
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Old 07-22-2015, 05:05 PM   #10
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We have the family plan with our daughter in Kentucky. All taxes are in that state and our legal address is Florida. Been full timing since June 1st and no changes in the billing statement. Not yet anyway.
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Old 07-22-2015, 05:09 PM   #11
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We just started full time also and we've been from CA to VA to FL. Our address of record is now SD and have had no change in our Verizon bill, so far.
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Old 07-22-2015, 05:26 PM   #12
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It is a sales tax and is due to state or entity in which you purchased that service , if you are in Georgia then you pay Georgia . It varies in every state , city and county .
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Old 07-26-2015, 10:30 PM   #13
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Switch to Cricket wireless. Flat rate every month. AT&T bought them out
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Old 07-27-2015, 10:15 AM   #14
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Switch to Cricket wireless. Flat rate every month. AT&T bought them out

That would be OK, but you go to the bottom of the heap if the tower you're currently on is really busy. AT&T (and Verizon) put their own customers at the top of the priority list on any given tower.

Other than the billing I love AT&T. On a good "hot" LTE tower, I've gotten right up to the design limit of LTE (around 45 million bits ber second) for data downloads. That is smokin' !!

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Old 07-27-2015, 10:32 AM   #15
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Where in the world did you get that information from? That's not how it works. (I worked in the industry for years). The only thing they so is limit LTE download speeds to 8Mbps. That's way more than needed.
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Old 07-27-2015, 11:09 AM   #16
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Higher bills mean higher taxes... For a long time I was grandfathered into the Sprint SERO plan which provided unlimited data for $35/mo. plus about $4.50 tax. Today I have Republic wireless which is $25/month plus $3.76 tax... It's setup to prefer available WiFi networks vs. cell towers which works seamlessly. When I am mostly home or at work I actually drop it down to the $10/mo. plan which does not allow data over towers but can be changed on a moment's notice... Unlimited everything & I can even tether my laptop on the road...
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Old 07-27-2015, 12:01 PM   #17
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Where in the world did you get that information from? That's not how it works. (I worked in the industry for years). The only thing they so is limit LTE download speeds to 8Mbps. That's way more than needed.
From a store when I was looking for a new carrier.

However, even if the only difference is the 8MBits limit and NOT the way I told, I still have to consider the limit you mention as a factor.

It DOES make a difference to me since I regularly I regularly DL files in the 1-4GByte size range.

I respect the fact that you worked in the industry; you should have a pretty good "handle" on all the inner workings.....

But the way it was explained to me, DOES make a lot of sense. The bandwidth off any given tower is finite and has be shared by all users connected to that particular tower at any given time.

Isn't that why on the same exact tower, I get screaming performance at 2:00 AM but next morning at 10:00 PPM the thing crawls??

It would seem unfair that those paying the higher rates got no priority over the "bargain basement" subscribers.

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Old 07-27-2015, 02:19 PM   #18
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From a store when I was looking for a new carrier.

However, even if the only difference is the 8MBits limit and NOT the way I told, I still have to consider the limit you mention as a factor.

It DOES make a difference to me since I regularly I regularly DL files in the 1-4GByte size range.

I respect the fact that you worked in the industry; you should have a pretty good "handle" on all the inner workings.....

But the way it was explained to me, DOES make a lot of sense. The bandwidth off any given tower is finite and has be shared by all users connected to that particular tower at any given time.

Isn't that why on the same exact tower, I get screaming performance at 2:00 AM but next morning at 10:00 PPM the thing crawls??

It would seem unfair that those paying the higher rates got no priority over the "bargain basement" subscribers.

Boowho??
The "bargain basement" subscribers pay less because they are not paying for the phone subsidy. We pay full price for the phone and then get service at a discount. That is the only difference and there is "no priority" based on service.

Oversubscribed towers can cause data speeds to slow, but it will be the same for all subscribers. There is no preference for AT&T vs Cricket.

8Mbps is way more speed than you realize. That is 8 megabits per second, not megabytes per second. At 8Mbps, a 4 gigabyte file would be downloaded in less than a minute.

BTW, AT&T average LTE speed is 5-7 Mbps nationwide so the 8Mbps limit for Cricket users is never really an issue. There have been reported LTE speeds as high as 18.6 Mbps on AT&T, but that doesn't happen often.

Download the Speed test app and check your LTE speed. I just got 7.82Mbps in McComb, MS.
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Old 07-27-2015, 02:32 PM   #19
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It is a sales tax and is due to state or entity in which you purchased that service , if you are in Georgia then you pay Georgia . It varies in every state , city and county .
If, your talking about the individual sales tax charged on a call, it usually goes like this; where the call originates and terminates usually determines if the call get sales tax added. Calls made by telephony, that are contained (begin and end) within the state, are the ones mostly taxed, IF that state levies a tax on such telephony. Calls that have a different state, breaking the chain, do not.
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Old 07-27-2015, 03:31 PM   #20
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BTW, AT&T average LTE speed is 5-7 Mbps nationwide so the 8Mbps limit for Cricket users is never really an issue. There have been reported LTE speeds as high as 18.6 Mbps on AT&T, but that doesn't happen often.

Download the Speed test app and check your LTE speed. I just got 7.82Mbps in McComb, MS.
I defer to your obvious experience in this area.... However, using Ookla and running off a tower about 30 miles from the South entrance to Yosemite NP, I was clocking right up close to the LTE max (around 42Mbits actual speed using Ookla). And this was out in the "sticks".

8Mbit is right around 800K bytes figuring a 10 to 1 ratio (8 bits per byte and a couple of bits "overhead"). So 800KB per second gives about 2.88GB per hour (800KB x 60 x 60) unless my arithmetic as faulty.

One of us definitely has flawed arithmetic since you state "At 8Mbps, a 4 gigabyte file would be downloaded in less than a minute". Perhaps you were thinking of a 4 MEGAbyte file?? There is no way I can see getting 4GB (the size of an entire DVD) in less than a minute.

Just my $.02 worth. Perhaps it IS my arithmetic that is faulty. YMMV.

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