Some people are still renting their phones. [telecom]

Same thing happened in Australia after deregulation in the 1980's, it took ages for people who just kept paying the same old phone bill to realise that they could just go down to the local shop and purchase a handset for the cost of a few months rental.

I also still see some older people paying exorbitant Internet fees because they signed up for plans many years ago that charge multiple times the current cost of the same services, but their ISP is still taking the money because they "....only upgrade on a customer request".

I suspect the number involved overall is quite small, despite what was quoted in the article. After 20 years, many older people have passed on and others have moved.

But, I suspect there is a far larger population overpaying their telephone charges because they have not kept up with the latest service plans and options. Many service plans constantly change. That is, plans that once had components bundled now have monthly service charges added to them, buried deep in the bill. Or, the price of an old plan goes up, while new plans are offered with new discounts. Sometimes speical discounts are negotiated for those people who do call in.

Despite having national flat rate service--no calls are itemized--my phone bill still is 6-7 pages long every month with various details. Many lines are literally just a few cents, with such gems as "SERVICE ADJ FEE $0.02CR". (Wow--a 2 cent credit!) But all this extraneous detail makes it hard to find out the real costs.

It's hard for ordinary consumers to keep track of these things. Calling 'customer service' takes time out of the workday. Websites may not have all the details.

It's been MORE than 20 years. 1/1/84.

Anyone using a 25+ year old telephone is probably happy with the things as they are, or the billing is in error. I've changed my home phones at least 5 times since divestiture. *