State and local government taxes also represent about 25% of consumer telecom bills, Speta says.

FORBES: Wine And Your Phone Bill

In a 2002 paper James Speta of Northwestern University laid out three broad historical justifications for applying common carriage to regulate prices and access.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

An expert on the First Amendment and the Internet, Speta says students who express themselves on the Web do face greater risks than earlier generations.

NPR: School District to Police Students' Online Activities

Professor JIM SPETA (Northwestern University): You can take a site down from the Internet, but if it's been up for a little while, it gets archived.

NPR: School District to Police Students' Online Activities

"As we see more advanced services like cell phones and mesh networks, states may want to pursue some of their traditional safety and social objectives, like 911, by regulating those entities, " says James Speta, an associate professor at Northwestern University School of Law.

FORBES: Wine And Your Phone Bill

Mr. SPETA: The price that I paid to buy my house has always been the piece of information that somebody could find out by going down to the Cook County recorder of deeds, but that was a lot of effort and no one really bothered to do that.

NPR: School District to Police Students' Online Activities