I signed up with Verizon (moving from Comcast) a few years ago. At that time, I decided not to use Verizon's voicemail option (which was included) because I had a wireless phone base unit voice mail system that would not show that I had messages if I used Verizon's. That is no longer the case, and I also need to be able to allow people to leave messages while I am on the phone. Lo and behold: There is now a significant additional charge for Verizon's voice mail. I am turning it down and finding an alternative solution.
This reminds me of what has started to happen on the cable tv end. Have you noticed the appearance of a channel called EPIX? I've started to see movies that I used to see on HBO and other movie channels only being shown there. Lo and behold again: Another additional charge. There seems to be a trend of value being sucked out of the services we sign up for and placed in "additional charge" buckets.
I will need to look at this closely at renewal time.
