"I agree. I would love to move to Alaska. Any Alaskan companies looking for an experienced LAMP developer? I scan the job sites on a regular basis but haven't found any appropriate opportunities."

I agree with you, but if you look beyond the snarky comments in the "article" you will see they also consider the employment situation. Anchorage perhaps has the lowest per-capita quantity of IT jobs of any major city in the US. The number of tech companies that have a significant presence there is near zero. Just a few corporate IT jobs.

"WTF? Does that mean the US telcos are double dipping?!"

No, it is just a different model.

In the US/Canada, calling a mobile vs. calling a landline is the same price (often unmetered or very cheap). In most cases it costs just a few cents a minute to call anywhere in the US, landline or mobile, usually including Alaska and Hawaii. Some packages even extend that to Canada, and western Europe (non-mobile in the latter case).

That is not the case in Australia, the caller to a mobile is usually charged a hefty surcharge. Take a look at your international calling rates, you will see no special mobile rate for calls to the US. It is all the same rate, there are no special mobile area codes (a.k.a. city codes).

In many cases, you can even transfer your home number to a mobile if you are eliminating your landline.

One could argue which concept is better, fairer, or whatever. As with Australia (and almost everywhere) it really depends on the package you get.