Just after a long battle that the telcos gave their customers a gift in the elimination of a federal taxt that the carriers had lobbied hard to get the USA to drop, and found a way to keep the money.
This is clearly a case of “bad timing.” Had they waited a few months then done a “price increase” instead of just trying to tack on the charges in mysterious and attention drawing ways they likely would have gotten away with this skating through and not being noticed.