Consumers Would Pay In Phone Proposal A proposal backed by a coalition of telephone carriers would cut billions of dollars in fees owed by long-distance companies to regional phone giants but would allow the regional companies to make up some of the difference by raising monthly phone bills for millions of consumers. &lt;FONT face="verdana,MS Sans Serif,arial,helvetica" size="-2"\ color="#666666"&gt;&lt;B&gt;-The Washington Post&lt;/B&gt;&lt;/FONT&gt;