Blame it on monopolies, taxes & regulation.
For about a decade, my businesses have operated off of VOIP and the Mrs & I both have cell phones. I used to keep a voice land-line to the house for "redundancy" if the broadband (from a separate carrier) should go down. Even "basic" service for this line was over $35/month. (no caller ID, long distance, etc)
Several years ago, the line went bad; noise increasing over time until it became unusable. When I called AT&T customer service to repair it, I was told that it would take 4 or more days! Then it hit me: I was paying >$35/mo (or $420/yr) for this kind of redundancy? The Internet and/or cell phones would never be down for 5 days, and at least if that were to happen I could call forward on them. This was unacceptable for the price I was paying.
