Looks like you need another hat. 8-).

Is this because of charges at the ISP/NSP or charges by the Telco?

If the Telco, I can't recommend anything other than going to the public hearings and making yourself heard.

If the ISP/NSP, I can suggest you compete with him.

In my area, there is little difference: ~$80/month for frame relay from your location to a designated cloud, and ~$220/month for Internet Direct (or $300/month for US West, plus you need your own router with US West while I.D. provides a really dumb one for you -- how can you enter a market at $80/month higher than your competition and expect to not get your shorts eaten?).

So you are winning by $25 to $105 a month over me.

ISDN is a little cheaper, but goes up drastically for Telco charges for anything useful (ie: more than 8 days of connect a month -- means no Web services, etc.). Plus ISDN is only available in some locations. The ISP costs are nearly the same, even though the equipment costs for FR are near nothing, comparatively (an ISP needs an ISDN connect in per ISDN user -- ISDN is switched virtual circuit, just like a phone call).

For reasonable connectivity (ie: online all the time, but not necessarily pounding out the packets all the time), ISDN is simply unusable.

It's all a plot to make us buy our phone services from our Cable TV companies (I will buy my phone and net services from the same company when I can, and it will be whichever charges me less. TCI is charging ~$28/month for 6Mbit/S fiber optic net connection to 100,000 homes in Southern California... with phone service thrown in).