They're obviously not lying. NCTA's letter made the issue clear: retail stores have items pre-labeled, and, under this new rule, they'd need to create thousands of variations of those labels. Unlike sales tax, where the business always knows what it's going to be charging every customer, pass-through fees vary based on the customer's home address.
Again: these aren't fees Comcast chooses to charge; it's money local governments are taxing from their residents, piggybacking on the ISP billing system.
Again: these aren't fees Comcast chooses to charge; it's money local governments are taxing from their residents, piggybacking on the ISP billing system.