Why your cell phone bill is getting so expensive — and how that helped persuade the Fed to raise rates

Millions of Americans recently received unwelcome news about their cell phone bills. In late July, T-Mobile said it was retiring over 1,000 older plans, shifting customers to newer offerings at an added cost of as much as $6 per line per month. And starting Aug. 5, AT&T hiked rates on some of its older plans by $10 to $20 and increased a monthly per-line fee by $1. The changes contributed to a steep 5.9% jump in Americans' wireless bills from July to August alone, according to Consumer Price Index data. It was the largest single-month jump since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the category nearly two decades ago.