Communications: Voice, Radio and Data - Why is AT&T charging $130 to reactivate my phone jack??

We disconnected our one phone line a month ago - no tech came out, this was all done over the phone. We would now like to reactivate the phone line. AT&T says they will charge $130 to have a tech come out to reactivate the jack - with either the old phone number or the new number. I'm stymied as to why someone has to even touch the phone jack to get it working again. Does anyone have any idea on how we can save $130 and do this ourselves? Thank you!!

You might have been able to save yourself some money if you did it differently and your telco works similar to ours.
Here we can temporarily suspend a residential service for a short amount of time but you have to arrange this in advance AND pay a monthly fee.

If you outright cancel your service you will be pretty much stricken from the books and will have to start all over again which is borne out by the fact you need a tech visit.
You should actually be happy they don't charge you a fee to get your old number because here you would pay for that.

"We don't care, we don't have to. We're the TELEPHONE COMPANY!"

If you have high speed Internet access then try a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) instead of the telephone company. The old wired telephone system is on its way out and not a moment too soon in my opinion.