As the new report notes, Verizon charges an administrative fee on every voice line for postpaid customers, including business customers. It’s an ambiguous fee that doesn’t apply to data-only lines. The fee had remained constant for the past two years. But the company is now increasing it without citing any specific reason. “From time to time, we review and make adjustments to fees to defray some of Verizon’s administrative and telco expenses and costs of complying with regulatory requirements. To that end, Verizon Consumer will implement a change beginning in June,” a company spokesperson told the publication in an emailed statement. Verizon is also introducing a new “Economic Adjustment Charge” next month. Starting June 16th, business accounts will see an additional $2.20 per line on their monthly bill. This new fee will apply to smartphone plans and data devices. Users with a basic phone or tablet will see an increment of $0.98 per line. The company gives the following reason for the introduction of the additional charges. “The current economic conditions impacting businesses worldwide continue to mount and despite our best efforts to mitigate the further impact, we intend to offset a portion of these costs by implementing an Economic Adjustment Charge,” Verizon said.
Verizon may be looking to pad its margins with the latest price hike
On its Q1 2022 earnings call, Verizon revealed that its quarterly revenue increased 2.1 percent year-on-year (YoY) to $33.6 billion. But the net income was down 12.4 percent from the same period last year. The company may now be looking to offset some of that shortfall with price hikes. Of course, it wouldn’t concede that. As said earlier, Verizon’s price hike comes into effect around the same time as AT&T’s. The latter is increasing the prices of its older phone plans by up to $6 a month for a single line and $12 a month for family plans. The company wants to push people to its newer plans.
