It's been some time since I have had any type of analog phone service so maybe someone here can help me out. I'm looking at a family member's phone bill right now and AT&T seems to be robbing them of about $11/month for nothing but horrible long distance rates. Most of these are recurring charges for things like: $2.99/mo for the priveledge of them sending you a bill! To give you an idea of the extortionate (in relation to todays market) rates, a call to Hawaii was charged at .41/minute!
To cut it short, they almost never use long distance and if they put the approximately $120-132/year they're being charged for nothing towards a calling card it would yield thousands of minutes of long distance calls. I do remember in past though that there were absurd taxes that the LD carrier collected and to my knowledge passed on to the local carrier, like the PICC. Once you dropped long distance completely from the line the local carrier decided it was still entitled to that money and then tacked it onto your phone bill as additional taxes. Is this still the case or will dropping the LD service completely elimate all charges associated with the LD portion of the bill without adding on to the local charges/taxes?
If this is one of the locale specific questions, then the area service in question is Utah.
Any info appreciated.