25% Increase in Residential Local Phone Service Over the Past 10 Years

[SOURCE: saschameinrath.com]
[Commentary] Reading through the recently released Statistics of Communications Common Carriers, Sascha Meinrath noticed an interesting trend in the average rates charged for residential phone service. They keep going up -- from $19.81 in 1994 to $24.31 in 2004. I find this particularly fascinating because the rates for businesses aren't increasing at even close to this rate (having grown from $41.64 to $43.75 over the same time frame). You can see this for yourself on tables 5.11 and 5.12 on pages 145-6 of the FCC report. Thus, while business rates only went up a few percent (and most of that over the last year when it jumped from the $41.96 in 2003 to $43.75 in 2004), residential rates increased by a whopping 25%. The question is, why have residential phone service rates been steadily increasing for the past half-decade while business rates haven't?
http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005nov0925_increase_in_residential_local_...