Not to hijack the discussion, but I'm going to switch to taxes and fees on cell phones (I realize we're discussing landlines). We have been with all of the Big Four cell providers in the past 10 years and our monthly bills have always shocked us because they're nowhere close to the fees promised when we purchased the plan.
Texas charges roughly a 21% tax on cell phones. Add to this per phone charges for various local, state, and federal mandates, local taxes, and federal taxes and you're suddenly looking at a huge bill.
I don't have a bill in front of me (I held off responding to this because I wanted one in front of me, but won't have a new bill for a couple of weeks). If I'm not mistaken there's a $5.95 per line charge. So when we add another phone for $10, right off the bat it's $15.95. Plus other other smaller fees I missed, 80 cents here, a dollar there. And the added fee for unlimited texting for the kids. And the previously mentioned taxes. Wow.
I don't know this is true. But I'm guessing once upon a time cell phones were looked upon as being luxury and business items, so states taxed them heavily. As time went on everyone got a cell phone, but states enjoyed the revenue stream and never dropped the taxes.
John