ATT Raises Prices for Cable Modem Owners 382
MBCook writes: "It appears that AT&T broadband doesn't like it when customers own their own cable modem. According to this article at ZDNet, ATT will be 'changing' their prices for all users. If you own your own cable modem, your bill is going up $7. If you lease your cable modem, you end up paying the same ammount you were before. I guess AT&T likes to milk it's customers. If I don't have a long distance service with any phone company, I have to pay for the privilage of not depending on them. Now I'll have to pay for the privilage of not depending on AT&T for a modem?"
Bandwidth caps (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bandwidth caps (Score:3, Funny)
Maintainance costs of the different people... (Score:4, Insightful)
While everyone will shout and scream "I don't want AT&T to maintain my cable modem", but when the line gets dropped and AT&T need to diagnose the problem they will apply the first rule of problem resolution
"The user is a moron, the fault is at their end"
This involves them doing the standard, is your modem turned on, is it working, is the green light flashing.... you don't have a green light, oh its your own modem, so how do you tell if thats working ?
So it does cost them money in terms of call and tech support. They have to have special call centre scripts, new diagnosis procedures etc etc.
And your cable modem might have a bug which buggers their network.
Re:Maintainance costs of the different people... (Score:2)
The only reason I can think of is that *possibly* (and I'm really guessing here) they're trying to keep the older DOCSIS modems (that can be easily uncapped) off their network. Dunno, but it would make more sense than anything else I've heard.
Re:Maintainance costs of the different people... (Score:2, Interesting)
You make a good point, except for one fact, when I signed up for ATT Broadband they were encouraging you to buy your own modem. They also had a list of approved modems which negates your point about the modem being a source of bugs. Why does it matter if I'm using a PCX1100U that ATT gave me or that I bought at Best Buy?
The thing that upsets me most is that ATT is taking it upon themselves to jack up my rates after I paid $80 for a cable modem in an effort to save money in the long run.
How quickly we forget. (Score:5, Informative)
In order to hook up a modem, you had to get a special Data Access Arrangement from them, for which the monthly charge was more than you'd pay for a modem today.
Eternal vigilance, etc.
Re:How quickly we forget. (Score:2)
The monthly charges on the phone were like $5.00 or something. We took the phone back to the company. Turns out she paid, over like thirty years, like $3000 or something, for a lousy rotary dial phone.
I read a similar story recently, on how to cut down living costs, and this was listed too.
So if you know any old people, check out their phones; you might be doing them a favor.
Re:Maintainance costs of the different people... (Score:2, Interesting)
As for support, since the modems are DOCSIS, it is quite easy. The boot up steps are the same for all modems. Find downstream frequency, find upstream frequency, ranging for US/DS attenuation, IP configuration, authentication and registration.
In terms of tech support, the operator can see (almost in real time) which modems have problems and which do not based on the RF values. Heck, you can even do that with MRTG yourself.
So, in the end, your arguments are not valid. This is not a technical decison but a business decision. How can we milk the customer a little bit more. Nothing less and nothing more.
Re:Maintainance costs of the different people... (Score:2)
Re:Maintainance costs of the different people... (Score:5, Interesting)
No more anticipation... (Score:2)
Re:No more anticipation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at it this way: If you buy a cable modem, it costs you approximately $200 (with taxes) on the spot, and saves you $3 a month for as long as you have the connection. In roughly five and a half years (66 2/3 months), it will pay for itself. Do you see yourself staying with AT&T Broadband service for five and a half years? If not, then rent, it will save you money. If yes, then buy, it will save you money. For me, I couldn't see the benefit of buying even when it saved $10 a month, that's 20 months I have to keep the service to get my money back! What if I want to switch to DSL when it becomes available (which it just did, about two months ago)?
Just do the math.
Re:No more anticipation... (Score:2)
Very interesting
I paided $89 for mine and when leasing was getting charged $15 a month. So for me it was only 6 months to make up the costs. Come June, and I will have broken even.
Way it looks now, Cox internet is the best.
A Global problem! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that a major US provider is changing the rules, it'll be interesting to see how Slashdot readers take the news when it affects them a bit closer to home.
This is a problem that affects us all.
DD.
Re:A Global problem! (Score:2)
Matter of fact, when Comcast announced that they're working toward simmilar restrictions, there was alot of outrage, and alot of people told the whiners to vote with their feet.
Now, while a $7 surcharge for owning your cable modem isn't exactly nice, it's not nearly the kind of restriction that you aussies are feeling, or those waiting under the hammer of Time Warner and Comcast here. I can't imagine something like this is going to drive a whole lot of people off. That said, if someone does find it beyond the pale, then they damn well better "vote with their feet" as you put it and stop giving a company they can't stand their money.
Re:A Global problem! (Score:2)
Those are your only choices. Unless you actually DO SOMETHING about what you complain about, then complaining is completely and uttterly useless. You're still giving money to them, that's all they care about. AT&T doesn't care one iota if you complain. They only care if you don't want their service. All the damn advertising is intended to convince you that you want/need their service. Once they've convinced you of that, all you're willing to do is complain about it, and they're having a nice chuckle at your rantings and ravings, because they know you're too spineless to do anything about it. How's it feel to be a slave to your broadband Internet, eh?
Not me. If broadband Internet service costs more than I'm willing to pay, then I'm just not going to have it. End of story. Thanks, have a nice day, AT&T. Dialup is plenty fine for me. It gets me my e-mail, basic web browsing, and the other small parts of the Internet that are actually useful, rather than the %99.99999999999 of it that is merely diversionary (like Slashdot).
If more people actually put their money where their big mouths are, things would be alot more resonable around here. However, America is the Land of Cheap Talk. No one bothers to follow through with anything. So companies happily continue to screw people over, because the people are too sheepish to do more than talk about it.
You, my complaining brethren are the problems. The devil didn't make you buy broadband. Either do something about it, or keep it down. Some of us are trying to live over here.
Amen (Score:5, Insightful)
[...]
Now that a major US provider is changing the rules, it'll be interesting to see how Slashdot readers take the news when it affects them a bit closer to home.
A-fucking-men. I get so utterly sick of these Randian libertarianesque businesses-can-do-no-wrong every-consumer-should-be-an-expert-at-deciphering
Most homes can only get cable/cable-modem service from one providor, or local telephone service from one providor (in both cases, the company that owns the last mile of copper going to your house), so telling people to "vote with their feet" is literally tantamount to telling them to physically move to a new community or do without what is becoming an increasingly vital service.
It is utter crap when these self-styled free marketeers (who apparently can't recognize a limited, non-free market when it hits them in the face) tell folks in Australia that sort of nonsense, and it will be equal crap when they do so in this thread.
It is past time that people and consumers organize once again and restore some social responsibility to these businesses. Businesses and corporations exist at the sufferance of the people
Re:Amen (Score:3, Funny)
I like what you have to say. When does your fight club meet?
Re:Amen (Score:4, Insightful)
self-styled free marketeers (who apparently can't recognize a limited, non-free market when it hits them in the face)
Well, a real free-market thinker would understand that cable ISP's aren't even close to being a free market. In the US anyway, each cable company is granted a legislated monopoly in a given town. Only one company can run a cable to your house. Same for phone companies. So... service sucks and prices are too high.
restore some social responsibility to these businesses
An easy platitude to utter, but exactly what are you proposing? Brainwash the management? Throw 'em in jail as an example? Pass a law that says they have to be nice? I mean, how do you make a company more responsive to consumers, other than open it up to some good old free-market competition? Get rid of the last-mile monopolies, and you'll see the benefits of the free market.... the same greedy people will have to treat their customers much better.
To quote the old line, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
Re:Amen (Score:4, Interesting)
An easy platitude to utter, but exactly what are you proposing? Brainwash the management? Throw 'em in jail as an example? Pass a law that says they have to be nice?
Don't be silly. Suspend their corporate charter and take away their license to do business for acting against the common interest. If you look at the wording of the laws that allow for coporations to exist, you'll see that they require said corporations serve the public interest.
Indeed, it was very uncommon in the early republic for corporate charters to be granted, and not so terribly uncommon for them to be revoked, essentially putting the offending company out of business. Of course, back then corporations were not considered "real" people like they have been since a particularly bizzar (and unprecedented) California court case some eighty years ago that turned everything on its ear and granted corporations all the rights and priveleges of real, breathing, living human beings.
I think one or two revocations of corporate charters would be sufficient to change the behavior of other large corporations, without the need for managerial brainwashing or laws telling people to be nice, don't you?
As for jail time, if someone is managing a company (like, say, Monsanto) that knowingly falsifies FDA test results in order to get dangerous milk hormones approved for public consumption [c.f. Into the Buzzsaw] or knowingly and with premeditation poisons the groundwater of a town in the southern U.S. in the 1990's (and gets caught with the memos discussing how to deal with the political fallout should they ever get caught) [c.f. just about every major American Newspaper, pre 9/11], then yes, I do think the fucking bastards should be put in jail. Perminently, if their behavior, or negligence, has resulted in the loss of human life.
Re:Amen (Score:2)
Brainwashing isn't a bad idea. Here's another: take monthly polls of all the customers, and if their customer approval rating falls too low, the management is taken to the public square and caned. And then their salary for the month is revoked.
If the people in charge had to face consequences from the public they serve, they wouldn't treat them so badly.
Re:Amen (Score:4, Insightful)
Great. Now do that with:
* the food you eat (unless of course you are explicitly sactioning Monsanta et al., big agribusiness)
* the clothes you wear (unless of course you are explicitly sactioning the sweatshop labor that goes into most imported clothing)
* the air you breath, the land you use (unless of course you are explicitly sactioning the gross malfeasance and greed that results in the polluting of our public land)
* every fucking product or service you use in any concievable way
I support the notion, but in a world that is so highly specialized that we completely isolated from the origins of the products and services we use and for which we come to depend on society (and its big black box of tangled interactions), it is just not practical, fair or even possible to expect everybody person become an expert on all economic chains they participate in as a consumer. In reality, it is *also* a company's responsibility to behave ethically and shoulder half the burden, and we enforce this by laws and regulation. There should not be a double standard where people have to behave ethically but companies can behave like assholes just "because". Maybe we should just abolish the Bill of Rights and have people "vote with their bats"?
Well, cable modems got cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
those who own c modem and those who don't should be
smaller - down to $5. This means that overall
this is a rise for everybody - just for
those who don't own cable modems the rise is
compensated by the fall of cable modem prices.
Dont close your eyes (Score:3, Insightful)
Small correction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Small correction (Score:2)
glad I don't own my own... (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, I rather expected this move. In case you haven't noticed, telcos are struggling right now, and any move that can keep them afloat (ok fine, keep the share holders happy) they are going to do. Rather nifty of them to tell anyone, as I am a subscriber, and I didn't receive any information on this. Yeah, of course the rights and all that are subject to change, but enough of running rough-shod over your customers. We are people too, and don't always have the convienence of having a ton of loot sitting around, or customers we can up prices on without telling.
In a similar rant, a lot of these companies do these things without even pausing to consider what the risks are, simply because there (for the most part) ARE NONE. Customers will bitch, a few will change providers (those lucky few that can) and other than that, NOTHING WILL CHANGE. YOU might care enough to drop service, but most people are so apathetic about stuff like this, it's comical. Bitch, moan, give em the money. Hell, it makes business sense to do this. Too bad the customer gets it in the end eh?
Considering the Risk... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Considering the Risk... (Score:2)
Re:Considering the Risk... (Score:3, Interesting)
bandwidth = multiplier * (monthly charge - fixed costs)
for dial-up, it'd be
4k/s = multiplier * (20 - (i. cost))
assume fixed (by which I mean everything but the bandwidth) was, say, $12(making this up), and the multiplier is
So, X =
X = 20
20k/sec.
Of course, I'm sure there are a million other factors, but the bottom line is, if the fixed costs the same amount to maintain, you're buying another $30/month worth of bandwidth. If $1 =
Let's say that 20k/sec is what you've purchased, but that you can average it out over a month. That'd work really well; it would allow them to uncap your line until it looked like you were going to go over your quota, then slow you down so that you ended up averaging 20k/sec over a month. During peak times, they could cap it to prevent congestion, but when you needed 400k/sec for 5 minutes at 3am, they could give it to you. That's what they should really do. Because when they buy bandwidth, they don't buy it by the gig, they buy it by the kbps. Therefore, you should get it by the kbps. The trick is, to get it to where what you're paying and what you're getting is fair. They're trying to do this, and they may be acting in good faith, but they're going about it the wrong way. They need to charge you:
(fixed costs + bandwidth costs)* (1 + (%profit margin))
That's it, that's all there is to it.
Is that not a good idea? I really think it is. Critique it if you disagree.
Re:glad I don't own my own... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the real issue. Change providers? To who? Cable is an unregulated monopoly in the US, so you can't just change cable companies and get different service. And the FCC and Congress decided that allowing customers to choose their ISP on cable/DSL was unimportant, so you are stuck with AT&T/Charter/Time Warner/whoever for what you do have. DSL is going down the same path now, if you can even get it.
What other options are there really? Partial T1 tends to be too expensive, even in major cities with heavy telecomm systems.
The rule is simple - when there is no competition then the companies have all of the cards. Traditionally the consumer has the ultimate power in the form of voting with their wallet. However when there is a monopoly that sole ability is removed, because the consumer has no place else to go.
It's sad, really... the Telecomm Act of 1996 was supposed to fix all this. All it's done is move us backwards 50 years AND removed government oversight. Happy happy, joy joy.
Re:glad I don't own my own... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly the point. These companies aren't gouging their customers, they're just trying to make a little bit of money and not lose money. They brought out the service at as low of a price as they could reasonably afford to do to gain market share. With the economy being shaky, they haven't been able to scale up as high as they'd like to be able to pay off their initial investments with lots of subscribers. The result is they have to raise prices. If you look at how they did it, it was done pretty fairly. Cable modem prices have dropped significantly, and the cost of leasing the modem was reduced accordingly. If they kept the price of the modem high, those who lease their modem would be subsidizing those whose who owned theirs. Everyone got a $7 increase in the cost of their service. That's a pretty big increase, but it may very well be justified by their costs. If AT&T or other providers were making a fortune providing cable modem service, you're complaints would be justified, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Yeah, of course the rights and all that are subject to change, but enough of running rough-shod over your customers. We are people too, and don't always have the convienence of having a ton of loot sitting around, or customers we can up prices on without telling.
It doesn't look like AT&T sent this info to ZDNet in a press release. The article said that AT&T was planning on announcing this later in the day. The article also states the current subscribers will get coupons so that they don't feel the bite of the price increase for 6 months. That seems like a pretty generous amount of warning of a price increase. I don't blame you for being upset about a price increase. No one wants to pay more for the same service, and most people don't have the choice of just switching to a different provider.
In a similar rant, a lot of these companies do these things without even pausing to consider what the risks are, simply because there (for the most part) ARE NONE.
They do have some risks in not raising prices. As we found out from the dot com crash, you can only have a business model where you don't make money for a rather limited period of time. Telephony companies are losing lots of money right now. They either need to find a way to start making money again, or your choices of providers could go from one to zero. How to you increase revenues when you can't do it by lowering the price and gaining more customers? You raise the price and hope you don't lose customers.
Re:glad I don't own my own... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure AT&T isn't just restructuring their pricing for the fun of it. They're likely doing it because it helps their bottom line. Something as drastic as changing their pricing is going to get a lot of internal scrutiny before it happens. I find it hard to believe they would do this "just to discourage people from having their own equipment". I'm pretty sure it traces back to revenues.
This is wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
And the customers that own their own modem are having they're bill increased by 7 dollars.... So essentially by owning your own modem, your now helping to subsidize the cost of users who don't want to buy their own modem but lease it.. That seems very wrong to me, hell completely wrong.. why should I have to pay 7 dollars to have my own modem as opposed to 3 dollars to rent it? I smell some lawsuits here..
Glad I have Comcast Cable modem here in PA..
Re:This is wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
You are a retard. Read the article.
Base fee (now): $35.95
Cable modem surcharge (now): $10.00
Total bill to lease the modem: $45.95
Total bill w/o the modem: $35.95
Base fee (June): $42.95
Cable modem surcharge (June) $3.00
Total bill to lease the modem: $45.95
Total bill w/o the modem: $42.95
Everyone is paying $7.00 more per month for the service. The difference is that people who lease their modem will not notice the difference because the lease fee has dropped.
As often happens, the headline is not accurate, and no one else bothers to read the original article.
There is no subsidy. Cable modems used to be $300. At $10.00/mo, the lease paid for the modem in 30 months. Now that cable modems are $100, dropping the lease to $3.00/month means that it is paid off in 33 months.
The metrics are basically the same. You're just dumb.
Re:This is wrong... (Score:2)
I have been paying $3 a month for 50 months (so far) to "rent" a set-top cable descrambler, that probably cost the cable company $20 in bulk. Also, I pay $1.35 "remote control rental" for the remote for that box... $65 so far. Why? "Because it is part of the cost of service."
I'm more concerned as to why my local cable monopoly has been promising digital cable to our community for four years, and still has not delivered. 100,000 residents of surrounding communities have subscribed to it, but not us. After getting the third ad in a month via mail, I finally called and said "do you have it for our city yet?" "THEY'RE working VERY HARD on it."
What is there to work on, and who are THEY? This town was built mostly from the ground up about 15 years ago from a farming community into a surging suburb!
They should have "it" done by now!
I'm just pissed because they don't have Cartoon Network. Too many frickin' movie channels...
Re:This is wrong... (Score:2)
Re:This is wrong... (Score:2)
Then sir! yer an idiot! what you describe is subsidizing stuff for your self... what they are doing now is making people who have there own modem subsidize people who don't... thats whats wrong about it!
Re:This is wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't understand why they would need to charge extra for someone not using a cable modem. They are saving them money, since that cable modem can used by someone else. Support? They don't have to support the cable modem/router itself, only the cable line in this case. Sort of like when you have to pay extra to NOT be in the phone book.
Re:This is wrong... (Score:2)
I agree with you that just like RoadRunner, AT&T has no obligation to discount anything at all for those that don't use the provided modem. So the bottom line is that cable modem owners should still be happy that they now get $3 discount.
Or another way of looking at it... (Score:5, Insightful)
What we really need is more competition in the marketplace. We need at least a dozen different services, then one of them would relaise the good niche market of people with their own cable modems.
Re:Or another way of looking at it... (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree... As soon as I get my next bill, I intend on getting on the phone with a manager at customer service and letting them know that I will switch broadband cariers as soon as annother option becomes available.... If enough people do this they might just get scared and listen...
...or they might just tighten thier grip on their monopoly
Ownership Tax (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm surprised AT&T hasn't made their own cable modem yet and FORCED users to buy it. That wouldn't surprise me. This does.
-Evan
Re:Ownership Tax (Score:2)
Trying to make a profit? (Score:2, Informative)
Dial-up ISPs... (Score:2)
Re:Dial-up ISPs... (Score:2, Interesting)
cable modems (Score:2, Informative)
Once I reach the upstream cap (300) the connection dies completely. If I upload a file to an ftp site the connection is broken until I stop the transfer. If I start loading a few webpages, or have several ssh sessions opened to different servers, it dies until i can close all the windows, and power cycle the modem. I've seen this happen while watching tcpdump and getting 100-150 arp requests every second for about 5 minutes, the modem sits and crunches while I'm getting 75% packet loss to their router.
From mailing list archives the general feeling is that when this happens your modem is faulty. Well I've been trying for 2 months to get a new modem, and I've gotten nowhere. With that information, and the fact that it powercycles itself about 4-5 times every 8 hours, I've decided that it is the modem.
There definately isn't any perks to paying them monthly for a modem. I'd rather be able to take the damn thing back to Best Buy and exchange it. I think I'd rather have my own modem just for that reason, even if I'm only saving 3 bucks a month.
oh yeah, posting comments on
Nice logic AT&T (Score:2)
Personally, I think they would prefer people didn't own there own modems for management reasons.. If this is the case why not just say that.
James
D.C. Appeal Courts: This is Competition (Score:2, Insightful)
Notice how the "competition" is driving prices down?
Ummmm....
Not just ATT, everyone is doing this. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not just ATT, everyone is doing this. (Score:2)
LEXX
Im going to get attacked for this (Score:2, Insightful)
Thats right, get over it. The precedent in slashdot was set when a lot of posters told us Aussie to get over our shitty cable modems.
The businesses are going to keep sending up prices, and finding new ways to tax the consumer. It would be half-acceptable if they bought it down again in times of growth, but they don't. So first of all, if you don't want to get reamed, don't get cable.
But if you want cable, there are a few options. First of all, contact you industry ombudsman, if you have one. Also lobby the nearest democrat member of congress and the senate, make sure your complaints about this discrimination reaches someone who could possibly give a shit, and do something about it.
In other words, if you cannot change from AT&T to another cable server or adsl, make sure yo fight dirty (a.k.a political). What is another option is to publicly shame AT&T, perhaps with a few letters to the editor of you local newspaper. So instead of bitching about it, get over it, and do something about it. The more people that give a shit, the more people that read about it, the more bad publicity the company will get, and that WILL get their shareholders pissed.
(Recent example of bad publicity at work, our biggest bank in Aus (NAB) were making a drastic change to their reward scheme. Quite a few people got pissed, and they half-reversed the scheme just as quickly as they had announced it. Bad publicity works, and it starts with their own customers.)
What's "broadband" in AT Cable? (Score:2)
So, what's the bandwidth of the prices described in the link?
PS: In Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) a 300 kbps cable modem is about $38. 256 kbps ADSL about the same, taxes included.
Re:What's "broadband" in AT Cable? (Score:2)
I lease my modem so this doesn't really affect me anyway. I learned the hard way when I had DSL at my last apartment that owning a $200 broadband router bites if you don't renew the same service. Anyone wanna buy a cisco 675?
Re:What's "broadband" in AT Cable? (Score:2)
Let me rate them, 1-100:
Quality of service: 95
Tech Support (rarely needed, tho): 20
Respect Earned: 0
Does anyone think... (Score:2)
For people signing on to AT&T Broadband, it is obvious that buying a cable modem isn't such a great benefit anymore, and it would actually be more cost effective in the long run to rent. Won't cable modem manufacturers lower their prices to try to encourage people to buy?
ATT charges for phone rentals (Score:5, Interesting)
AT&T used to bill senior citizens, and still do in some part of the country, for renting out their 'touch-tone' phones. Not that I am trying to bash on senior citizens or anything, but many individuals who never looked at their bills for years and knew their rates were remaining fairly constant never knew that they were being billed for a phone that they had in their home that was actually installed and owned by AT&T.
There was a news report done on this where an individual took care of his mom and when he started to do her bills, he had noticed that she was getting charged for having an 'AT&T' phone. The funny thng is when he found ou that for years his mom was paying for the rental of the phone, he rushed right out to the nearest store and bought her a simple $9.99 phone with big buttons (so she could see). Called AT&T and told them to remove the phone.
This may not be the oldest form of AT&T milking their customers, but it certainly is one of the most interesting ones that I have heard. Fleecing of America (especially our senior citizens). *sigh*
Re:ATT charges for phone rentals (Score:3, Interesting)
So people who remember the days of party lines were so used to this that they never bothered to question it.
On the positive side, those old phones from Western Electric were much better than the $9.99 phones from the dime store. They were probably worth $200 or so, good solid and lasted forever.
Re:ATT charges for phone rentals (Score:2)
Re:ATT charges for phone rentals (Score:2)
Picking up the car in 2 hours! WOO HOO!
Re:ATT charges for phone rentals (Score:2)
My parents continued to rent telephones for many years after they were allowed to purchase their own phones. Why? Because if something broke the phone company would fix it for free.
Later on, the phone company quit offering this service to new customers. That's why senior citizens made up the majority of customers who rented phones. They happen to be the majority of folks who have lived in the same place for the longest time.
So for some customers, renting the phone was a conscience decision.
/Don
Re:ATT charges for phone rentals (Score:3, Funny)
If geeks weren't such suckers, the answer would be (Score:2)
But geeks are suckers, they can't be without their broad-band fix. And as long as people are willing to pay, companies are willing to charge. Stand up and let them know how much the service is worth. (And go outside.) Or you can continue to be a sucker and pay $7 more per month.
Some History Behind This for @Home Users (Score:2, Interesting)
About a year ago, I got my dad set up with @home. At the time, you could save about $10 a month off your @home bill by buying your own cable modem. Cable modems then cost about $170, so we figured buying one was a no-brainer, as it would pay for itself in less than two years.
Then @home went down the toilet and my dad's service was taken over by AT&T. Now it looks like our decision to buy wasn't so smart after all. My take-home lesson from this: never bet your own money on the assumption that your cable provider won't change the rules of the game.
Re:Some History Behind This for @Home Users (Score:2)
Making up for other divisions... (Score:2)
Example: We have the "AT&T Ultimate" long distance plan - for $20/month we can call anyone for $0.07/minute except other AT&T customers - those calls are FREE. That cut our average LD phone bill by an order of magnitude. (Not kidding - wife + sister-in-law + mother-in-law talk several times a day for at least an hour. Don't ask me what they talk about, they won't tell me and I'm certain I really don't want to know.)
This quote sums it up... (Score:2)
/Spicole from Fast times at ridgemont high
You DICK!!
/Spicole off
Sounds like a good plan:
Charge more to the people who invested in the technology, are your best/longest customers and probably sold your service to *other* people before you fscked it up and capped to the point of being useless.
"extract a little more money", eh?
Yeah, the more you tighten your grasp, fsck-head the more your business will slip thru your fingers.
Erosion (Score:4, Informative)
I'm only glad that at the moment this price increase does not affect me. There are other things that bug me a whole lot more.
My top ten pet peeves with AT&T Broadband:
10. Playing with the pricing structure so much that it's starting to resemble the price structure for Cable TV. That means it's going to end up being nothing short of confusing.
9. Being moved from only 3 hops to a backbone to 7 hops. A move that now forces *all* of my IP traffic to go to new york instead of cambridge. I have a lot of traffic that ends up at POP's in Cambridge.
8. Elimination of "vanity" hostnames. Soon we will all have hostnames like h000102030405.ne.client2.attbi.com instead of nice names like vanity.mediaone.net. I suppose it helps them to discorouge people from running services on their machines.
7. Having my upstream bandwidth reduce by 15% because the @Home folks only had 256KBps so now we all have to. Why not give the @Home folks a little bandwidth boost rather than punish the rest of us?
6. Having to deal with Teir 1 Tech Support. I remember the days when you got to talk to a knowledgable person immediately. You didn't have to wrestle with someone verbally for 20 minutes before they would let you talk to a real network admin.
5. Getting all those calls from AT&T trying to cross sell other services such as Broadband Telephony. For a while I didn't even qualify for Digital Voice yet I still would keep getting the calls for it. Go figure.
4. All the changes in added services such as e-mail and personal pages. I enjoy improvements in these services but do they really need to be "improved" on a yearly basis. It seems that everything has to totally change each time this happens.
3. The confusion and fingerpointing everytime my broadband service is sold to or merged with someone else. I really miss the days when you could just pick a good service provider and know that they would always be there for you.
2. Having to print new busniess cards and notify *all* my contacts that my e-mail address has changed from "mediaone.net" to "attbi.com". (I tell them that the attbi stands for AT&T's Big Inconvenience.)
1. The voice menu "from hell" system. I think Jon Katz could write another popular column on this one. Heck he could probably write three columns. It's so convoluted it want's to make you scream. To top it off you can no longer pretend you have a rotary phone and jump straight to a person. It now has voice recognition. Arrggghhh!
Re:Erosion (Score:2)
Having to print new busniess cards and notify *all* my contacts that my e-mail address has changed from "mediaone.net" to "attbi.com". (I tell them that the attbi stands for AT&T's Big Inconvenience.)
If you don't like that, get a la carte email from somebody else. Then, when you finally ditch ATT, you don't have to tell anybody.
Re:Erosion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Erosion (Score:3, Funny)
Life is good. No spam, complete control, easier filtering (mailing lists automatically filtered to specific folders), no more fear. Aaah.
Re:Erosion (Score:2, Funny)
1. The voice menu "from hell" system. I think Jon Katz could write another popular column on this one.
Sure, he could, but do we all want to hear about how crappy voicemail relates to post-Columbine society and the aftermath of 9/11?
COX sucks worse. (Score:2)
Cox no longer has any names for their modems. You are a number. Services are explicitly prohibited. Only port 21 is left open to incomming requests because AOL's instant messenger needs it, so you can run ftp in a normal fashion. No, they don't want you to run ftp, but they have yet to cut me off for my little read only site.
so???? (Score:2)
Re:so???? (Score:2)
The planet where Moore's Law is in effect.
I guess AT&T likes to milk it's customers. NO (Score:2)
NOT NEW (Score:2)
They are actualy REDUCING the price of the modem rental, granted by just $1 a month but. . . . This is quite fair and I consider it JUSTIFIED and a LOT better then, say, implementing shitty ass bandwidth caps.
Considering the high quality level of their service (they have recently increased the upload speed cap from 16KBP/s to 30KBp/s!!!! YAHOOO!!!!
Good thing there's competition... err.... (Score:2)
YASE (Yet Another Spelling Error) (Score:2)
-If there is a mistake...well, you should have used the 'Preview' button!-
Customer No-Service (Score:2)
Earlier this month, I found myself moving to a new apartment, and needing new internet access. The cable provider monopolizing my new neighborhood? None other than AT&T.
I called up on the 3rd, ordered service, and was told that the cable guy would be out on a Saturday. That Saturday came and went, and of course, the cable guy never showed up. Seems the first person I had spoken to had failed to put in a work order.
Next appointment: Wednesday afternoon. My roommate takes off early from work so he can meet Cable Guy. Cable Guy arrives 10 minutes before my roommate gets there, leaves a note, and disappears.
So, he calls in to set up another appointment, and is told about installation fees. Fees which I was told, just last weekend, wouldn't apply, since I was ordering the 'basic' (do-it-yourself) modem installation. Here's where the fun begins.
I call them up to get a straight answer on the pricing. I get referred to two 'local' 1-800 service numbers. The first is disconnected. The second is for Long Distance (no, I don't want to buy any, thank you!)
I get referred to other phone numbers. Somehow, I end up getting a local broadband support office... on the other end of the country.
Indeed, until I declare my intentions to cancel my order (after the 8th toll-free phone call, and the 10th time on hold), it seems there is not one person in the entire company who can give me a straight answer on pricing. And by then, I've made up my mind to look into DSL and Dish Network. Both of them such good deals in my area that it's a wonder I ever considered AT&T in the first place.
On a side note, I recently heard on the radio that in a survey of satisfaction with the customer support services of various industries, Cable TV ranked at rock-bottom. And the worst of the worst? Charter, Comcast, and AT&T.
Gee, I wonder why.
Why (Score:2, Interesting)
What do we expect? (Score:2)
It sounds more or less like a Ponzi scheme to me, but it's capitalism (at least our brand) and it "works" (according to those it works for), so expect more of the same... until the people decide to change what corporations are and what they can do.
Isn't Deregulation Wonderful? (Score:2)
I hope you're all happy.
--Blair
Slashdot just happened to miss this one.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Article here [com.com]
general trend with AT&T?? (Score:2)
My point is, AT&T seems to be playing these games in other areas too, not just with cable modems.
BTW as a direct result of these games, my long distance is now provided thru Costco (lower rate, no monthly fee... take that, AT&T). Too bad cable modem users generally don't have the choice of jumping ship to another provider.
this is an incentive away from nat and tcp (Score:2)
So their solution is to provide modems with a different protocol which can identify machines behind nat...so that the connection between the ISP and your home is not IP.
Given that those schemes are on their minds, it seems only natural that they would want to discourage the use of a modem they do not control, or can not recall and replace with their new ones. Even if you don't cave in and pay for more IP's (which is ridiculous, you don't pay for additional phones hooked up to the same line/number, even though those numbers are scarce as well) they still get some extra ca$h.
I suggest we coin a term to combat the idea that every net connected device should be paying for an IP, even if behind a firewall/nat. I propose "IP Gouging". I also think people should contact the local public utility commission and explain how shady a practice it is. We pay primarily for bandwidth and connectivity, we only need one IP to make use of the utility.
Pass on cost savings to the customer (Score:2)
Easy way out: (Score:3, Interesting)
If they run tests and decide that you're not using their equipment (either by checking MAC addrs, which, as a practical matter, they really can't keep on file, or by issuing instructions to the modems), what can they do? You're "testing alternatives."
Besides, hey. This way you get a backup modem, in case the spiffy one you bought dies. And you can plug the modem in and turn it on when you're having service problems, if you feel like it, too.
Re:So, private companies can do it too. (Score:2)
In a world that says look after the profit and the social consequences will look after themselves then the user/providers interface is one of conflict.
Maybe if we were in a world that was dedicated to providing the best telecoms per user then we'd easily have fider to the door by now.
In the UK we had to sit gnashing teeth while BT made 93 GBP profit per second the dividends of which were going to private pockets rather than infastructure investment.
By breaking the UK telecoms we now have 2 struggling cable providers [:ntl & telewest] and one profit slurping behemoth [Bt]. A BT that sends a cease and desist notices if you actually use the service ['You have been using the flat-rate service too much - up to 16 hours per day - in violation of our T&Cs]. As a small but rich country we could have been world leaders in domestic telecoms, instead the users are being squeezed.
oh well, I get mine for free anyway
Re:So, private companies can do it too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please clarify (Score:2, Interesting)
I use an internet calling card exclusively and was looking to drop long distance on the land line altogether. The fact is, you CANNOT, unless you go to the extreme of having NO land line. In the age of wireless communications this is of course possible, but I don't know of a cellular phone contract that works out to being less expensive than a land line.
Re:Please clarify (Score:2)
Re:Please clarify (Score:2)
I do pay a surcharge though, 5 USD, described on the bill thus: "FCC Charge -- A charge to recover costs associated with connecting to the interstate telecommunications service providers network. This includes the cost of equipment and facilities maintenance. Customers are billed one FCC charge per-line each month."
Xentax
Re:Please clarify (Score:2, Informative)
I got really pissed when my $.05 a minute IDT service was costing me $7.00 a month in minimum usage charges, fees and taxes. $7.00/0 minutes is INFINITE cents per minute.
I changed my local lines to NO LONG DISTANCE.
You have to be careful what you say because the local telco rep is not allowed to recommend or influence your LD carrier decsision in any way. The sleezeball long distance companies have registered words like "whatever" and "I don't care" so may you get Fast Eddie's Ripoff telco if you say that.
I bought an AT&T calling card at Sams Club that was $39.00 for 1000 minutes. No more fees to pay. I just gotta dial a lot of numbers the few times I call long distance.
Re:Please clarify (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not particularly extreme to have no land line and go with a cellular phone. I've been doing that for over two years. It's cheaper for me to do so. In the past I'd pay Ameritech around $25/month plus long distance for a land line that has an unlisted and unpublished number (not available in the phone book or directory assistance). Invariably my credit card companies or other companies with whom I have done business would sell my number on a telemarketing list or I would begin getting telemarketing calls from them ("Please consider our credit protection insurance policy" kinda crap) and I'd have to pay to change the number. This was a hassle.
On top of that, I'm usually at work all day and out somewhere in the evenings, so I've had wireless since 1995 or so. Any of my friends, family members, or business associates would always call me on my mobile phone because they knew that they could find me quickly. My monthly wireless bill was usually around $40 a month, and I thought that was pretty reasonable.
After a while it got to the point that I never answered my land line, I just let the machine get it (voicemail would have been another additional monthly fee from Ameritech). It was never anybody that I wanted to talk to. After a month or two of this I decided that it was pointless to pay $25/month for a phone line that was only used by people who I didn't want to talk to (or for the occasional long distance call), so I had the land line shut off. I also upgraded my wireless plan to account for the potential of more minutes, and I now pay around $55/month for wireless service. That includes all the minutes that I use, plus free voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, and 3-way calling. Right now I'm looking into plans that offer no roaming and no LD charges too. One of the features that I especially like is that their "411" information service is really information, not just directory assistance. For example, if you call and ask for a number to a movie theatre they'll look up what movies are playing and give you showtimes too. Try getting that from Ma Bell! Plus I don't have to ever worry about my number being listed somewhere for telemarketers to get at.
On that note, I know that telemarketers aren't allowed to solicit you on your mobile phone because it costs you money, but I wonder if they have a list of mobile prefixes for each area code? I've never gotten a telemarketing call on my mobile, even after giving it to my creditors.
At any rate, from my perspective it makes sense to go purely wireless. It ended up saving me around $10/month since I already had wireless service, and it includes far more features than my land line did. I've got several friends and coworkers who've done the same thing after seeing how well I've gotten along without it. If you're afraid of the contract issue, just buy a mobile phone and get a pay-as-you-go plan. Phones have become so inexpensive lately that buying them up-front isn't that big of a deal, especially if you don't need one that does WAP and SMS and all that other garbage. Wireless companies are getting much smarter about this and now offer family packages with shared minutes (great if you're married, but I'd still get a land line for the kids).
Re:Please clarify (Score:3, Interesting)
Easy
I did the math when I needed internet access at home cable was cheaper than either land line+dialup or DSL.
Re:Please clarify (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless the lady on the other end was just lying, as I suspect she was....
Re:Please clarify (Score:2)
Re:What is this? (Score:2)