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iPhone Bill a Whopping 52 Pages Long 369

Posted by Zonk from the make-the-trees-stop-crying dept.
PoliTech writes "iPhone bills are surprisingly large - 'Xbox Large', according to Ars technica: 'AT&T's iPhone bills are quite impressive in their own right. We're starting to get bills for the iPhone here at Ars, and while many of us have had smartphones for some time, we've never seen a bill like this. One of our bills is a whopping 52 pages long, and my own bill is 34 pages long. They're printed on both sides, too. What gives? The AT&T bill itemizes your data usage whenever you surf the Internet via EDGE, even if you're signed up for the unlimited data plan. AT&T also goes into an incredible amount of detail to tell you; well, almost nothing. For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as Data Transfer. The Type of file? Data. My total charge? $0.00. This mind-numbing detail goes on for 52 double-sided pages (for 104 printed pages!) with absolutely no variance except the size of the files.' You would think that a data company would have a more efficient billing process."
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iPhone Bill a Whopping 52 Pages Long More

iPhone Bill a Whopping 52 Pages Long

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  • Cingular Billing Systems Are a Mess (Score:5, Informative)

    by smack.addict ( 116174 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:31PM (#20204817)
    They were never able to get my bill correct for the 6 months I was with them after the initial AT&T merger. I left, went with TMobile for a year, and I am now back as an iPhone customer. I probably should review my bill.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iced_773 ( 857608 )
      We got a bill from AT&T for long-distance service on our landline that we haven't used in years, since we get long-distance minutes included in our cellphone plans. So after we call up AT&T to ask what's up and cancel the service, they send us a check for $0.03. How efficient.

    • Employees hate the billing. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @04:03PM (#20205529) Homepage Journal
      Be glad your not an employee. When I worked at Cingular it was a nightmare when customers called in and wanted you to explain their bills. It's so complex and ass backwards that often nobody that works for Cingular can even tell you what it all means. It's pretty stupid when you have to pow wow with two or three managers to get a decent guess at what the bill is trying to say. It's a definate case of information overload being used to hide the real content from customers.

      • Re:Employees hate the billing. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @04:51PM (#20205825) Homepage Journal
        It's been a joke of mine that it costs the phone companies more to bill you for a phone call than it does for them to provide the phone call.

        IE they could charge everybody a flat rate, not have 'detailed billing', charge people less money overall and still make more money than under the current system.

        • Happens in all kinds of industries. (Score:5, Funny)

          by Shag ( 3737 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @10:50PM (#20208097) Journal
          I had a 401(k) somewhere. I don't remember which investment company it was with, or what former employer of mine it correlated to, or anything. Anyway, I rolled it into an IRA I had, along with some other old accounts. It went well - except for the investment company leaving a balance of about $0.11 in the 401(k) account.

          They now spend about $0.75 every quarter to mail me a thick statement telling me whether my balance has fallen to $0.10, risen to $0.12, or whatever.

          I realize that informing them would be the merciful thing to do, but my sense of ethics isn't that overdeveloped, so I let nature take its course.

          • Re:Happens in all kinds of industries. (Score:5, Funny)

            by Kahm-Hime ( 73765 ) on Monday August 13, 2007 @01:35AM (#20208997)
            A friend of mine really disliked his former cellular provider, so when he changed companies he overpaid his last bill by 2 cents. He's received a bill from that company every month for three years now, cheerfully informing him that he has a 2 cent credit.

            I keep telling him that if he ever moves, he should make sure that they receive his change-of-address notification. :)

      • Re:Employees hate the billing. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by failedlogic ( 627314 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @05:04PM (#20205907)
        I agree with parent poster.

        I've worked for another company in the same industry and friends have worked for their competitors. We all found the respective telco company bills difficult to read - espcecially in the computer systems we were using. Its not always evident - on complex and long bills to find out what's going on. The comptuer system I used was so bad and difficult to read, I eneded up putting customers on hold sometimes, generating a bill in the computer system and printing it out.

        So if ever you do call customer service trying to explain your bill, keep in mind many of the industry players have legacy or poorly made billing systems (usually poorly made) and its quite difficult to read.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by aralin ( 107264 )
        It sort of explains why it takes AT&T whole 10 days (WTF?) to prepare my bill after period close. Still does not explain where they get the audacity to charge me a month in advance when they can have no idea how much I am going to use my phone or why they would not prorate any of this fee back if I quit in middle of the month. If any of this happened in Europe, the wireless operator would be out of business in three months.

      • Re:Employees hate the billing. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @06:33PM (#20206521)
        That's the whole point. If your bill is a gazillion pages long with obfuscated charges, it makes it easier for phone companies to sneak in extra charges. When you look at your phone bill through that lens (and compare your monthly phone bill to other utilities) it becomes pretty obvious what the game plan is for the industry.

        • OCR? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by phorm ( 591458 )
          I've often considered starting a project to make OCR systems that would be able to read the bills of common vendors for cellular service, etc. It would work best if you had a feed-style scanner (as opposed to a flatbed where you would have to insert each page once per side... not fun with 52 pages), but it could look for inconsistencies like:

          - Billing during your non-billable minutes (e.g. free evenings/weekends)
          - Billing on incoming calls (for those with free incoming)
          - Billing on calls from others on

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sjaguar ( 763407 )
        While I agree that customers tend to suffer from information overload, it is not always the wireless companies fault. After working for a wireless billing company for the past 13 years, I have found that the government causes a lot of the confusion. When producing invoices, we had to make sure that they complied with federal, state, county, and city regulations. Matters would get more complex when dealing with some national carriers as you now have to comply with more regulatory bodies.

        Of course, the wir
    • They were never able to get my bill correct for the 6 months I was with them after the initial AT&T merger. I left, went with TMobile for a year, and I am now back as an iPhone customer. I probably should review my bill.

      After I left them I kept getting bills for $0.0 for several years. I called a few times but the folks at the other end said they couldn't stop them.

      • Re:Cingular Billing Systems Are a Mess (Score:5, Funny)

        by samkass ( 174571 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @10:36PM (#20208031) Homepage Journal
        This happened to a friend of mine. He sent them a check for $0.00 and it seemed to make the problem go away.

        I got a bill once for $0.22 in college, so I taped a quarter I found on the floor to the bill and sent it in. Since that was the last bill of the year, they sent me mail at home over the summer that I'd over-paid my last phone bill and would receive a check for the difference in a few days. Sure enough, a few days later came a check for $0.03.

        That's not nearly as bad as my credit card company with whom I canceled an account, though. They had a final balance which was an annual fee (the existence of which was why I'd canceled.) So I sent in a check for the balance and canceled the account. Well, some nice lady had apparently removed the annual fee charge, so when the check arrived there, I had a positive balance and they couldn't close the account until it was corrected. So at the beginning of the next billing cycle, their computer automatically cut me a check for the difference, then noted that I hadn't paid the annual fee and added that to my account again... so I was back to my original state with the balance on my card but a check for that amount in my hand. It took me months to get that darn card canceled, and in the meantime when I hadn't paid attention to the fact that it was still open they called me delinquent and the APR went up on all my cards. Sigh.

  • XO communcations (Score:5, Funny)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:33PM (#20204831) Homepage
    Every month for the last six years, I have received a bill from XO communications for -$846.52, for a line that I canceled which had a billing error on the closing statement. I thought about calling them to try to get it fixed, but I figured that would probably take several hours of navigating phone trees and getting transferred from one retarded support rep to the next. Easier to just toss them.

    I also got a refund check one time from PacBell for $0.01.

    • Re:XO communcations (Score:5, Funny)

      by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:39PM (#20204867)
      Holy shit! If you're receiving bills every month for -$846.52 I think you need to sick a collections agency on their ass!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )
      -$846.52? You gain money from XO Communications? Dude! [grin]

  • Paperless billing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PoitNarf ( 160194 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:34PM (#20204835)
    Now I am extremely happy that I went with their paperless billing option when I signed up for my iPhone.

  • AT&T Billing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fatman22 ( 574039 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:38PM (#20204859)
    Somewhere down inside the quagmire that is AT&T's billing system, you'll probably still find an active tariff for leasing crank-style (think "Lassie") phones to customers. It has never been updated to intelligently handle more recent uses of their communications systems, and heaven forbid you should ever ask one of their people to explain a charge or how to lower the cost of your "service". That's one of several reasons I refuse to do business with them anymore.
    • This is not AT&T wireless, this is Cingular. They bought the AT&T name.
      • You're apparently unfamiliar with Cingular's genesis. Cingular started as a merger between AT&T wireless and BellSouth Mobility (and other companies too)

        I believe that bellsouth took hold of the company for a while, and thus, Cingular is no better than AT&T

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Fishstick ( 150821 )
          not quite -- cingular was bellsouth and SBC

          cingular did indeed buy at&t wireless (which had been spun off as a separate company from AT&T) -- I worked at the company that did the billing for AWS and cingular took it in-house

          cingular became at&t through the SBC/AT&T merger and name change

          Stephen Colbert has a pretty funny bit [google.com] about the whole full circle path that AT&T has taken

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mog007 ( 677810 )
        Cingular bought AT&T's failing mobile division a few years ago. Then, just before the iPhone was released, AT&T bought Cingular and turned it into their new mobile division.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by timster ( 32400 )
          No, that's backwards -- SBC (owners of Cingular) bought the corpse that was once AT&T.

          People go on and on about AT&T around here as if the current company is the same one that existed five years ago. Truth is that by 2005 there was almost nothing left of the old AT&T.

          • Re:AT&T Billing (Score:5, Informative)

            by DavidTC ( 10147 ) <slas45dxsvadiv.vadiv@NoSpAm.neverbox.com> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @06:50PM (#20206645) Homepage

            No no no. SBC bought the corpse that was AT&T, and renamed itself AT&T, but Cingular was a joint venture between that and Bellsouth. Then the new AT&T bought Bellsouth.

            To recap:

            AT&T & AT&T Wireless exist, with the former owning the latter

            AT&T Wireless fails, is bought by Cingular from AT&T. Cingular is a joint venture of Bellsouth and SBC.

            AT&T is bought by SBC, which then names itself AT&T.

            SBC (Calling itself AT&T) buys Bellsouth. Now Cingular is a joint venture of SBC (Calling itself AT&T) and Bellsouth (owned entirely by SBC, which is, again, calling itself AT&T) or, in other words, wholely owned by SBC, aka, AT&T.

            They rename Cingular AT&T.

  • Part of the softening-up process (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:40PM (#20204883) Homepage

    They're preparing you for the day when they start data usage charges. "Unlimited usage" might be just an introductory rate plan. The telcos want to charge you for every download, and clearly they have the billing system in place to do it. You think they went to all the trouble to implement that when it doesn't generate revenue?

    • Doubt it. AT&T already has a pay as you go option, assuming you don't have a PDA phone or iPhone. They may bump the price of the unlimited option but I highly doubt the unlimited plans will ever go way. After all, $20 for the iPhone data plan or $30 for a PDA plan is still highway robbery for such a slow link (assuming edge.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by KZigurs ( 638781 )
      I think it might be the way around - they had it all in the place already, for full scale proper rip-off and somehow it turned out that their bill generating software was easier to update just by including a class of traffic charged at 0.00 per anything than instead omit it being 'registered' or 'reported'...

      One more thing where USA is waaay behind the rest of the world - most operators in europe has whitelists of data destinations that will be served, recorded but not exposed/charged to the user long time

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
      Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence...

  • It's called detailed billing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wireless Joe ( 604314 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:41PM (#20204887) Homepage
    and you can have it removed by a single request to customer service. What a non-issue. Of course, if detailed billing wasn't offered by default, I'm sure there would be people whining that they're not being told where their charges are coming from.

    • It's called detailed billing and you can have it removed by a single request to customer service. What a non-issue. Of course, if detailed billing wasn't offered by default, I'm sure there would be people whining that they're not being told where their charges are coming from

      Yeah... except it doesn't give you any useful details. As for people complaining if it weren't the default, what the fuck are you talking about? Other companies manage to provide a common-sense billing system without being drowned in a sea of complaints, so what possible reason do you have for thinking it would happen now?

      • Actually, lets say that your business provides your phone. Though the data provided isnt exactly very detailed in the TYPE of data you are sending/receiving, it indicates data usage. Inotherwords, your employer has a very good idea of how much time you waste surfing the web/msging/etc during company time.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by LighterShadeOfBlack ( 1011407 )
          Surely that could just as easily be attained by a simple summary of data sent/received each month. If a company doesn't trust an employee beyond that it seems to me they probably shouldn't be giving him a business phone at all.

          I certainly doubt that a company would want that information in paper form - for a reasonably sized firm you'd probably need a whole team of people dedicated to just reading and analysing the bills if it was paper rather than a digital, computer-digestable format (and of course what w
    • I have detailed billing from Verizon wireless, and it doesn't give me my data usage ad nauseam, it simply lists the details I care about, like..you know...phone calls?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )
      Any reasonable person would interpret "detailed billing" to mean details about what you're being billed. If an item costs $0.00, it isn't being billed. There should be one line saying "Unlimited data transfer - $xx.yy".

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mizhi ( 186984 )
      People are whining with the default detailed billing system, so whether or not to default to that system is a flip of the coin.

      A little common sense would indicate that the default billing option should be an electronic version, with the option of requesting a hard copy of the detailed billing records. You'd still have people whining (there will always be people who complain), and there would be a positive environmental impact from the paper that was spared.

  • They want you to know that they know (Score:5, Funny)

    by tzonic ( 1141125 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:41PM (#20204889)
    Maybe this is a subtle way of saying: yes, we keep track of everything. Your world delivered [to the NSA].
    • This isn't a subtle way of saying anything.

      And no, it's not "something that needs to be brought up" (I can hear it now) whenever someone talks about AT&T.

      If anything, AT&T wouldn't want to remind people of this. (No, wait...let me guess: they do want you to know, because AT&T is part of the corporate/government machinery that wants to get the "sheeple" "used to" being monitored, right? Give me a break.)

      The only thing "subtle" here - or not so subtle, actually - is someone taking an opportunity t
  • My cingular bill has been like this for ages, every single transaction listed without regard for charges. I finally convinced myself that too much information is better than too little.

  • AT&T are too kind (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eebra82 ( 907996 )
    There's nothing wrong with being thorough and precise. I think people would complain more if it was the opposite; no details whatsoever. Unfortunately, AT&T decided to do this the paper route instead of just supplying its customers with online, on-demand details. After all, no iPhone owner lacks an internet connection.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mikesd81 ( 518581 )
      "AT&T decided to do this the paper route instead of just supplying its customers with online, on-demand details."

      Well, first of all they do have paperless billing online. But not everyone has internet connection, or high speed internet, and I tell you from experience, you need broadband to pull one of those bad boys down. Second, I'm not sure I'd want to try to pull all that information via the iPhone given how big the file will be....you're next bill may be a little more pricey.
    • I'm amazed and a bit shocked that there are so many people here who think that paperless billing is an acceptable idea. It isn't, because:

      1) It can be manipulated after the fact. "What were you suing us for? Look at your online bill, it says nothing about the 4-hour-call to Farkistan you claim we've wrongfully charged you for."
      2) You can't prove the manipulation. "That so-called 'print' you have, it's trivial to fake out *anything*. Anybody can save an online bill to his local computer and change anything t

  • AT&T == NSA monitoring (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:43PM (#20204911)
    This level of detail is not only "mind-numbing" in is inconvenience, but should alarm anyone concerned with the privacy of their communications. AT&T has a dismal track record with respect to warrantless governemnt data mining, and it disconcerting that they relay such detailed monitoring for their billing records (even when there is no charge). You can be assured that such records are conveniently feeding the data mining engines at the NSA.
    • The billing system HAS to keep track of all of this to properly bill for non-unlimited access. Furthermore, it has to keep track of this for unlimited billing customers because plan changes do NOT come through instantly. Usually plan changes come in once per day.

      Also, there's absolutely no reason for Cingular to be sharing their billing data with the NSA when the modus operandi for wiretapping in the land-line world has been to simply provide a live copy of all the switch data as it comes through. I doub

  • The Truth Comes Out (Score:5, Funny)

    by AbsoluteXyro ( 1048620 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:43PM (#20204913)
    AT&T hates trees.

    • Reminds me of... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ChePibe ( 882378 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @05:29PM (#20206047)
      That reminds me of something a professor of mine used to say.

      He required that all assignments be turned in to him in both paper and PDF format. When asked why, he simply responded: "because I love convenience and hate trees."

      One day I had pink eye and requested to turn it in only via PDF. He responded by saying "my love of convenience outweighs my hatred of the dirty trees. PDF only, you sicko."

  • Hidden charges and "mistakes" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Matt Perry ( 793115 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [45ttam.yrrep]> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:45PM (#20204921)
    It'll make it easier to slip in a $1 charge here and a 25 cent charge there. Few people read those bills and making them longer and filled with useless data like this will make it harder to find the signal in the noise.
  • This issue has little to do with the iPhone and much to do with AT&T Mobility/Cingular Wireless' odd record keeping. My BlackBerry service also generates a massive bill -- length, not cost -- every month. Nothing new here, folks.

    • This issue has little to do with the iPhone and much to do with AT&T Mobility/Cingular Wireless' odd record keeping. My BlackBerry service also generates a massive bill -- length, not cost -- every month. Nothing new here, folks.
      C'mon, you HAVE to mention the iPhone by name, otherwise it's not newsworthy.

      Sheesh! You should know this by now. :)

  • Maybe they just sent out the wrong copies.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by dyfet ( 154716 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @02:58PM (#20205027) Homepage
    Maybe those were the copies that were supposed to be sent to the NSA...

  • Type of File? Data. (Score:4, Funny)

    by RealGrouchy ( 943109 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @03:03PM (#20205053)

    For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as Data Transfer. The Type of file? Data.
    Really? On my bill, every single line says "Porn"

    - RG>
  • I found the shots on the Ars webpage pretty useless - surely a side-on shot would be better? Anyone want to link a better photo of these slabs of dead tree?

  • The data is free (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @03:07PM (#20205079) Homepage
    But the charge you $15/page for the bill!
  • For the record you can get your bills via email from Cingular err AT&T but you have to explicitly request a turn off of paper billing. I think they'd prefer to go this route because it costs them less but I suspect US consumer protection laws (and possibly the FCC, which controls tariffs) require paper by default.
    What's the big deal here anyway? If they didn't provide the detailed billing info some asshat on this forum would be complaining about that too!

  • Same with Charter Cable Phone on Unlimited Plan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Proudrooster ( 580120 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @03:11PM (#20205115) Homepage
    Yep, sign up for Charter FREE UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE and get an itemized bill of all your long distance and zone calls. I think this is so the marketing drones can pull the run out from under you at some future date and point out HOW MUCH FREE SERVICE you have been getting. It appears that companies just want to keep their options open in-case they decide to eliminate or charge MORE for the FREE UNLIMITED SERVICE.

    Now that we know this, we should have a contest and see who can generate the largest bill.

  • Forward looking (Score:4, Funny)

    by griffjon ( 14945 ) <`GriffJon' `at' `gmail.com'> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @03:14PM (#20205145) Homepage Journal
    You see, ATT is preparing a new content delivery system, so soon your bill may include:

    Date - Transfer Method - Type
    08/07/2007 - Data Transfer - Data
    08/07/2007 - Tubes - An Internets
    08/08/2007 - Sneakernet - l33t w4r3zzz
    08/08/2007 - Quantum Entanglement - Welcome Basket of Oranges from The New ATT!

    and so on. So lay off, they're planning for a much wider array of services no doubt, and what seems contentless now will soon have great meaning!
  • we'll cut down a forest in your honor.
  • This should be an important item in green apple [greenpeace.org] campaign. After all, packaging material is used only once, while a bill repeats every month. iPhone owners should get online bill only through their iTunes account.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Here :

    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39486 [theonion.com]

    Just put any coffee cups etc you are holding away before reading.
  • Maybe they are keeping that level of detail because that's what Homeland Security asked for.
  • Let me quote an AT&T (SBC, so yes, this represents the Cingular side) executive for you on data:

    From the Financial Times [ft.com]:
    "We have to figure out who pays for this bigger and bigger IP network," said Mr Whitacre, who was in New York ahead of AT&T's annual presentation to investors and analysts on Tuesday. "We have to show a return on our investments.?

    "I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network, obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees, but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud.". . . . ."They might pass it on to their customers," he says of the fees that he wants to charge the sites.

    How does this apply to wireless, and in particular, the iPhone?

    Simple. A quote from Ed Whitacre's sucessor (Randall Stepheson, or RS: in the following interview) explains that. From Gigaom [gigaom.com] :
    OM: AT&T is a fearsome company now, with a weight of its legacy. Any first day jitters?

    RS: ... The new AT&T is wireless at the core in terms of great new handsets; in terms of enabling true anytime, anywhere mobility that our customers want and in terms of being innovative and service-oriented. If there are any jitters, it's from the excitement running through this company about our prospects.

    OM: There are a lot of challenges facing the company. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing AT&T as a company and you personally?

    RS: Our biggest challenge as a company is to ensure that our customers really understand what the new AT&T is all about. We are the most complete communications and entertainment provider for the way people live-and that starts with wireless. When people recognize that, we win. It's the same on the business side.

    My personal challenge is to make sure that the pieces we've assembled-industry-leading wireless, TV, broadband, global operations and local service work together as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

    OM: How vital is iPhone to your company? I have never seen AT&T push something so hard that wasn't developed internally. Why is that?

    RS: The iPhone is a radically innovative new device and it only makes sense that AT&T and Apple would partner to bring it to market. This device is very important to us, it's important to Apple and it is going to do very well with customers. It also reinforces with consumers that AT&T is the place to turn for the latest in wireless devices and services.

    How do I read this? AT&T feels that content providers (Google, Yahoo, AOL, CBS, etc . . .) should pay for each individual customer's access on a per-usage basis. AT&T also feels that wireless devices are the cornerstone of their future in ALL realms of connectivity, including business and entertainment.

    It only follows naturally that being able to account for *every single packet* a customer uses is part of that billing strategy. You aren't going to be billed by AT&T on that basis; they're going to bill Google et al, and you'll get a bill from the content provider. Let me quote Whitacre again: They might pass it on to their customers," he says of the fees that he wants to charge the sites. .

    Clear as day. If you don't see this coming a mile away, there's something wrong with you.

  • Monopolies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Degrees ( 220395 ) <degreesNO@SPAMgerisch.me> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @11:59PM (#20208545) Homepage Journal

    You would think that a data company would have a more efficient billing process.

    But if you are a regulated monopoly that gets to charge operating costs + 10%, isn't it is your best interest to maximize your operating costs?

    Now admittedly, wireless is probably the most competitive of all the data services (easiest to switch vendors, you actually have more than one vendor to choose from (well, not for iPhone users)). But my point is that these aren't new corporations with new ways of thinking. They are still old fashioned corporations where CYA is more important than customer service. Will they change to a shorter form? Of course they will. But it won't be because the director of billing information systems told his people "If it's what is best for the customer, do it!" It will be because the customers complained to the customer service reps, who told their supervisors, who scheduled a cross-business-line-meeting, who will tell the billing information systems manager what screw-up he is. And he will whine that if they didn't print out every freaking line item, then he wouldn't have been allowed to cover his ass with the customer bills.

    Besides, when the bean-counters come snooping around looking for ways to cut costs, the billing information systems manager will get to propose emailing the bill, and then shift the work to the CSRs to convince the customers to sign up. If cost's aren't going down, it's because the CSRs aren't selling it enough. Meanwhile, billing information systems manager gets a bigger part of the company budget than he would have otherwise. By costing more, his department is worth more to the company.

    In a truly free market, this would be financial suicide. But due to origins of telecom, these aren't really free-market companies (or at least they don't think like them yet).

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