AT&T’s service sucks. Just listen to our most trusted newsman on the topic. But AT&T response to this core business problem is not to improve its service, to invest in better ways to handle more customers.
No, AT&T’s response is to change its pricing to make us use its service less.
That’s cynical. It’s evil.
AT&T got rid of unlimited data (except for grandfathered accounts … else those changed accounts could all cancel without paying AT&T’s just-increased cancellation fee). They paint it as lowering the price but in truth they lowered the value.
The sick and stupid irony of this is that it was AT&T — in the person of Tom Evslin, then head of AT&T WorldNet (remember them? AT&T killed that golden goose, too) — that turned off the ticking clock on the internet when it established flat-rate pricing of $19.95 a month for unlimited use of the internet. That is what exploded use of the internet and enabled us all to browse without worry. That turned the internet into an industry.
And now it’s AT&T that turns the clock back on. Tick. Just as mobile is about to explode with new devices and new uses for us all to be ubiquitously and constantly connected doing all kinds of new things and creating new value along the way, AT&T says it wants nothing to do with that explosion (because it would have to work harder and invest more to do better). So it makes a business strategy out of imprisoning Apple fanboys as long as it can and making them use its service less. Tock.
AT&T also tries to push us off its network both with its pricing and with the promise of wi-fi. Its press release even makes it sound like an AT&T service that we can use unlimited wi-fi in our home! Thank you, AT&T.
Let’s note that AT&T’s action in relation to the iPad is nothing short of bait-and-switch as it was sold as using the magic of unlimited data with plenty of data-rich applications and now the price of that gadget only soars if you actually use it as it was designed: to consume media constantly.
I would hope that Apple is chagrinned about the door to which it has delivered its customers. But Apple sniffed the shark when it picked AT&T, making Apple’s control more important than its customers’ service and value and its partner’s quality and ethic.
Of course, this is all the more painful because AT&T’s competitors also suck. Verizon, which most say has good service, has data caps. T-Mobile, which I’m using on my Nexus One, has unlimited data but its network is about an inch worse than AT&T’s. When I was on Sprint, its service wasn’t great but at least they still have unlimited data. But with Verizon and Sprint, I can’t use their phones when I go abroad.
America’s mobile phone industry sucks! That’s more than a mere consumer kvetch. It is a strategic failing.
Hey FTC, if you really want to serve the future of media, why don’t you figure out how to instill real competition in the mobile industry? Right now, it’s a miserable quadopoly that has us by the balls and squeezes.
Can you hear me now?
: Oh, I meant to add: With GoogleVoice and Skype, I don’t even want your voice minutes, phone companies. All I want is your data. And I don’t even necessarily want data over your stupid caps. I don’t want to worry about it. Selling me a service I have to worry about is bad business.
Can you hear me now?
: Here’s Steve Jobs at D on AT&T. Nothing is said of AT&T’s moves to screw his customers the next day. Did he know about it? When asked what he’s going to do about AT&T, he essentially shrugs:
: LATER: Folks in comments and Twitter say that this is an open market and AT&T can set the prices it wants. Yes. And I can get pissed and leave. They say that some people use lots of bandwidth; the classic argument. OK. So AT&T says that only 2% of users exceed its limit. So they are making 98% of users now be nervous in hopes they will use less of the service they are paying for. That is what’s cynical and evil.
