regulatory price creeps piling onto the new technologies

I spent some time today on my Vonage account, waiting online for my SoftPhone to be removed from our business account--no complaints, but we just didn't use it much once Skype caught our attention.

What really caught my eye as I clicked through the invoices of the past year and a half was the steady creep of charges ancillary to the basic bill of $49.99; I assume most of them are caused by government, regulation, and lobbyists. Enlighten me, any of you, if I'm being unfair. But even more to the point, lighten my load. Here are the details of the 482% creep:

Sep 18, 2005:

• FET Tax $1.50
• Regulatory Recovery Fee $1.50
• Total added charges: $3.00

Jan 18, 2007:

• Regulatory Recovery Fee $2.97
• Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $2.97
• Sales Tax $4.95
• Federal Universal Service Fee $3.56
• Total added charges: $14.45