read this article***
http://www.tektok.ca/2011/01/teksavvy-customers-throttled-by-crtc-ruling/

I switched my Bell home phone and fax line to Cogeco. I discovered that Cogeco fax line was incompitable with my machine I had to go back to Bell. Primus was my long distance provider. When I received my bill from Bell I found a charge of 268.17 for long distant charges that I had not requested. They offered to waiver the charge if I subscribe to their long distance plan. It was difficult to accept a plan under such a coercion . I knew little about the plan and Bell refused to provide any information in writing I declined. After many intimidation-sounding calls I paid the charges .( Primus would have charged about 22 instead of 268 charged by Bell) . Beware !!!

I switched my Cable from eastlink to Bell and it was a nightmare. I have noticed month after month my monthly charges kept on increasing from $118 to $175. then when i checked my bills there's so many new charges that's irrelevant. So, I finally can take it anymore, so. I decided to cancell my service. Guess what? the agent told me the cancellation fee is $ 250.00.but again I prefer to pay the penalty rather than dealing with them. but its not over yet, they also taxed me 15% for the cancellation fee. this is ridiculous, for what? there's no service that they provided why I should be taxed? is this legal? I wish people will wake up and boycott Bell. this way they might changes the way they do business.

The great thing about Teksavvy is they also have home phone with waaaay better long distance rates. I need to give them a call for some details. The most important thing to do is shop around and check your options.

The following is posted on the Bell website at http://support.bell.ca/en-on/Home_phone/Long_distance_and_calling_cards/What_is_the_network_connection_fee_for_long_distance_calls

"If you subscribe to a long distance plan, there is no network connection fee. If you don’t have a long distance plan, you’ll pay a network connection fee of $1.95 for the first long distance call in a month."

The truth is the exact opposite of the above. If you subscribe to a long distance plan, the network charge is currently $6.95/month + tax. The fee of $1.95 only applies to the first long distance call you make using Bell as your long distance provider. If you use any other company for your long distance, there is no network charge or $1.95 first use charge.

Try Magic Jack

Here's our story. I don't have phone service with Bell Aliant because I use Eastlink for phone/cable and my internet. However my mom, who is 93, and lives in our home has her own phone uses Bell Aliant's service and has a long distance plan called Real Time. Two years ago we authorized YAK as her long distance carrier and any long distance charges added to my bill. (I don't believe she has made a long distance call since then.) Anyway, I just recently looked at her phone bill and discovered this "network fee" of $5.95 + HST. I said "that's Bull feathers"! Bell Aliant has charged this fee monthly to my mother for almost two years. So this morning we called Eastlink and switched her complete phone service over to them. Same number, no hook-up fees and hopefully a better service.

Bell Aliant's costs - Home phone service $26.70 + 911 fees of .62 + network fees of 5.95 +HST = $37.59
Eastlink costs - Home phone service $22.50 + 911 fees of .62 + HST = $26.14

Total savings - $11.45 in mothers purse, NOT Ma Bell's. Bottom line for me is if you don't like how your service provider is treating you... go elswhere. IMO Bell Aliant is cheating thousands of it's customers and they don't even know it.

The real reason that the incumbent telephone companies charge miscellaneous service fees, is that it allows them to advertise prices that seem to be more competitive or better than the Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs). Instead of including these charges in the advertised price, they are loaded on afterwards. You only see these charges when you get your bill, by which time you are in a contract. This of course is totally misleading, if not outright dishonest. You will see the same practice on your hydro bill, where the actual price per kilowatt, after adding all the surcharges, is much higher than the advertised price.

I arrived at this page by "googling" network fees after my neighbour (a former MT&T/ALIANT/BELL employee) told me that if my long distance plan isn't with BELL/ALIANT (it's with PRIMUS/WIN-TEL) then I shouldn't be paying these system/network access fees - costs me abot $9.00 per month per cellphone. From everything I can find out - I shouldn't be paying this, but how do I get it stopped?? or better yet how can I recover the past years that I have been paying it??

The reason companies send out a bill each month is so that you can review it and then ask them any questions you have about it. If you see a charge on there you don't recgonize you can call the company at that time and question them about it. And the article is right, Bell COULD include the price of their network charge in the price of their plan, but that doesn't make good business sense. Why not let customers know what all of their charges are for, why hide costs and make customers wonder why a long distance plan costs so much?

I agree with the last person, Bell is not bell anymore. They used to be my number one choice
but I cant say that anymore.
Talking about their ridiculious rates, They charge me 25 cents per minutes for calls made in
Canada because I don't have a long distance plan with them, and 1.75 cents per minute for
overseas calls which you can get for 29 cents .

I just got notified that Bell is switching my business phone to a new plan: $5 a month for 1000 minutes I will never use, plus a $7.95 a month network fee. Unbelievable!!! I think I will switch to Yak, they look like the best deal going. 3.5 cents/minute and no network fee.

I just canceled the Long Distance plan with them last week. The plan they had me on (First Rate, I think it was called) was $2/month to get a 10 cent/minute rate. Funny thing is I never asked or agreed to be on the plan. The same thing happened to a friend of mine and when she asked when she supposedly signed up the date they gave her was during a vacation she'd taken out of the country. In my case I've been getting hit with this since June of last year. I wasn't concerned enough to fix it because I saw the Long Distance plan was only $2/month and I hate calling them. Then I looked into the Network Charge and found that I was being scammed for a total of $7.95/month. The worst part? I have my own VoIP box that I use for all my long distance calls and get about 1.5 cents/minute or so. Anyhow, just thought I'd vent a little since you've already opened up the subject.