B4| Friday, August 23, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech
price hikes.”
The Journal, for example,
identified two customers in
the same city (West Holly-
wood, Calif.), with the same
provider (Charter Communi-
cationsInc.) and the same in-
ternet speed (100 Mbps) who
are paying two different
monthly prices: $50 versus
$66.
A Charter spokesman said
the company has consistent
pricing throughout the coun-
try, and this difference be-
tween customers in the same
city is likely a result of one be-
ing on a promotional offer.Bundles and Discounts
Of the bills we reviewed, 82
were from customers who got
their internet service as part
of a bundle of TV and/or
phone services. Comcast
Corp., the largest U.S. broad-Internet pricing is a puzzle
for many American consum-
ers. It is an unregulated mar-
ketplace where prices vary
drastically across the country,
or even just across the street.
Internet download speeds
of 100 megabits per second
can cost anywhere from about
$25 to $105 a month, accord-
ing to a Wall Street Journal
analysis of 187 bills from
2019—bills largely provided by
BillFixers, a company that
helps consumers negotiate
better rates with cable and
telecom companies.
The tally includes custom-
ers buying internet stand-
alone and as part of a bundle
with other services. BillFixers
redacted personally identify-
ing information from the bills
it provided the Journal.
Put another way: Some cus-
tomers are paying the same
amount, say $70 a month, for
slower connections (30 Mbps
from Cox Communications
Inc. in Tucson, Ariz.) as others
are paying for superfast ones
(300 Mbps fromAT&TInc. in
Spring Hill, Tenn.). The bills
included customers from all
the major U.S. providers.
Why is internet pricing all
over the map? The companies
say the level of competition
market-by-market, the varied
costs of wiring different re-
gions and promotional offers
play a big role. Experts say
those factors don’t account for
all the disparities.
“In terms of legal markets,
there are exceedingly few
where pricing is so completely
opaque,” said Sascha Mein-
rath, a telecom policy profes-
sor at Penn State University.
“Prices are completely un-
knowable except to suppliers,
[and] customers are con-
stantly told supply is con-
stricted, leading to various
BYSHALINIRAMACHANDRAN
ANDINTIPACHECO
how to hold those carriers ac-
countable, The Wall Street
Journal reported recently.
In statements on Thursday,
the companies praised the ef-
fort, which they said aligned
with some of their previous
public commitments.
“We remain committed to
continuing to work with stake-
holders at all levels of govern-
ment and throughout the in-
dustry as we continue to fight
this ongoing battle,” said a
statement from Joan Marsh,
executive vice president of
regulatory and state externalaffairs for AT&T.
Some in the industry are
pushing for rules that would
hold telecom carriers account-
able for following industry
best practices.
Verizon urged the Federal
Communications Commission
in July to require telecom pro-
viders of all sizes to have pro-
grams for monitoring custom-
ers and mitigating robocalls.
The FCC should put carriers
on probation or kick them off
the telephone network if they
turn a blind eye to illegal traf-
fic, Verizon said.ers.
Industry officials say some
of these little-known firms are
originating a significant
amount of robocall traffic, and
authorities are at odds overContinued from page B1Carriers
Set Pact on
Robocalls
computing applications.
“Whatever is going on
around the world, we see a
buying environment where we
see CEOs investing—and top
of mind for them is digital
transformation,” Salesforce
Co-Chief Executive Keith Block
said on a conference call with
analysts. “That’s why they’re
turning to us.”
For the current year, the
San Francisco company raised
its forecast for revenue to be
between $16.75 billion and
$16.9 billion, up from between
$16.1 billion and $16.25 billion.
However, the company also
cut its earnings outlook as it
works to digest acquisitions.
Salesforce closed its largest
purchase to date earlier this
month, buying data-analytics
platform Tableau Software Inc.
for more than $15 billion instock. Less than a week later,
it struck a $1.35 billion cash-
and-stock deal to buy Click-
Software Technologies Ltd.
Salesforce said Thursday it
expects full-year earnings of
28 cents to 30 cents a share,
off from its prior guidance of
78 cents to 80 cents a share.
The quarterly results are
also a sign of relief for inves-
tors because Salesforce beat
expectations despite concerns
around potential softness in
international markets and
headwinds related to currency
exchange rates, Stephens ana-
lyst James Rutherford said.
The report comes after
firms including networking-
gear makerCisco SystemsInc.
raised concerns earlier this
month about potentially tepid
growth in information-tech-
nology spending.stances or pricing plans
change, we work with custom-
ers to continue to get them a
price for the product they
need that fits within their
budget,” a Cox spokesman
said.
An AT&T spokeswoman said
“our current standard rates
are consistent across our 21-
state footprint.”
A recent Journal study
found that faster speeds don’t
necessarily mean a better
streaming experience: Picture
quality doesn’t improve much,
and video content doesn’t load
more quickly.
Our bill data indicated that
households subscribing to pre-
mium plans of 250 Mbps are
spending an average of $36
more a month on internet ser-
vice for less than a second’s
improvement onNetflixvideo
load times, compared withhouseholds on 50 Mbps plans.
The providers said consum-
ers are demanding faster in-
ternet speeds to support the
many devices in their house-
holds, as well as activities
such as ultrahigh definition
(4K) streaming, online gaming
and telecommuting.Extra Fees
Customers say the addi-
tional fees tacked onto service
costs are among the more con-
fusing parts of their cable and
internet bills. About half the
bills the Journal reviewed had
additional internet-related
fees—for things like “speed
upgrades” and modem
leases—ranging from 4% to
60% of the monthly internet
cost.
Here is a look at some of
those fees.
Charter charges a $5 “Wi-Fi” fee for customers leasing
combined modem–plus–Wi-Fi
routers. The Journal found
this charge on about a third of
the Charter bills in our sam-
ple.
A Charter spokesman said
this is the only fee included on
Charter’s bills, and for cus-
tomers receiving one gigabit-
per-second of internet speed—
a superfast service tier—the
fee is waived. “Our internet
billing is extremely straight-
forward,” the spokesman said.
Altice USAInc., which op-
erates the Optimum brand,
charged internet fees on 16 of
the 17 the bills we analyzed.
They ranged from $2.50 to
$36. An Altice spokeswoman
said the $36 fee was for the
provider’s entertainment hub,
which helps power the home’s
Wi-Fi as well as cable and
other services.
Comcast had the highest
median internet-related fees in
our sample. One Comcast user
in Houston was charged a $50
fee for exceeding their data
limit.
All the internet providers
have said they offer a number
of affordable internet tiers and
options.Give Us Your Bills
We want to learn more
about internet pricing and
need your help. Do cord-cut-
ters pay more for internet ser-
vice? Do people in rural areas
pay more than their suburban
and urban counterparts? Do
providers give more discounts
when they have competition in
a region?
We need more bills to an-
swer these and other ques-
tions. Please send a copy of
your latest monthly bill to
[email protected]. Please
redact anything, such as the
account number, you don’t
want to share with the Jour-
nal.
We won’t publish your per-
sonal information without
your permission, but a Journal
reporter may contact you to
verify details.
—Kara Dapena
and Patrick Thomas
contributed to this article.Web Speed Is the Same, the Bills Aren’t
Consumers pay vastly
different prices for
comparable services, a
Journal analysis finds
band provider, doesn’t break
out the cost of internet ser-
vices purchased in a bundle. In
a pair of bundled bills in
Omaha, Neb., Cox breaks out
the internet cost for a 100
Mbps customer but not for a
300 Mbps user.
Internet providers often
lure customers into service
bundles or faster connections
by offering big discounts that
will later expire. Our bills
showed that 70% of people
with bundles got discounts,
compared with 34% of those
with stand-alone internet ser-
vice.
When looking at both
stand-alone internet and bun-
dled bills, we found two-thirds
of customers with the fastest
connections got discounts.
Just a quarter of those with
slower speeds got a discount.
“When customers’ circum-Some U.S. consumers pay the same amount for slower connections as others pay for superfast ones. An AT&T technician in Atlanta.MELISSA GOLDEN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALSalesforce.comInc. raised
its full-year revenue outlook
after reporting record results
in the latest quarter, a positive
sign for enterprise-technology
spending as some companies
in recent weeks warned of
weakening client sentiment.
The business-software pro-
vider said Thursday revenue in
the July quarter rose 22%
from a year earlier to $4 bil-
lion, beating analysts’ consen-
sus estimate of $3.96 billion
and the company’s internal
guidance.
Salesforce also surprised
Wall Street with a second-
quarter profit, though it was
off 70% to $91 million, or 11
cents a share. The company
had expected it would swing
to a loss, in part, from ac-
counting charges related to its
$300 million buy of Sales-
force.org, a reseller of Sales-
force software to the nonprofit
and education sectors.
Excluding stock-based com-
pensation and other items,
Salesforce said its quarterly
profit was 66 cents a share,
higher than the 47 cents a
share analysts polled by Fact-
Set had forecast.
Shares increased nearly 7%
in after-hours trading.
Salesforce’s revenue and
stock price have risen in re-
cent years as companies accel-
erate spending on digital
transformations. The 20-year-
old company has also been po-
sitioning itself to be a domi-
nant provider of cloud-BYSARAHE.NEEDLEMANSalesforce Offers Upbeat Signal
On Prospects for Tech Spending
The business-software provider increased its revenue forecast.VICTOR J. BLUE/BLOOMBERG NEWSNOTHING IS LEFT
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