It was touched on - there's the "official list price" (which has gone up) and the "price actually paid by large providers" (which has gone down). My best guess

It was touched on - there's the "official list price" (which has gone up) and the "price actually paid by large providers" (which has gone down). My best guess is that the price rises were to bring in some immediate profits in the short term ("this quarter isn't looking good") and them these were shortly followed by the compensating discount you have to give to your pissed off customer. Problem was that nobody gave a toss about the profit margin on the lone guy paying $1000 a month (or $1300 a month) at retail.