It's a line... Cox has been slowly and steadily raising their rates in lockstep with the other carriers, and they're not really negotiating anymore while they're pushing two year contracts with only one year discounts (again, like their duopoly competition - shock). Now that people are cutting back on secondary services, they're raising internet prices to keep revenue up.
As for yourself, look into
DSLExtreme's Fusion Broadband or their considerably newer trueSTREAM service instead of going directly with AT&T. With Fusion (it serves Irvine), you'll be spending around $50/month after tax, but you'll get as fast as they can provide DSL and unlimited nationwide home phone service for that money. If trueSTREAM is available, you'll have solid 6-12Mbps options for between $35-40/month. Unfortunately, you're still dealing with contracts, but at least they're one year instead of two, and DSLEx hasn't been known to jack their prices around randomly on their customers.