ATT must die

[Undertoad]

tw has been right about everything he's ever said about AT&T. I did not pay attention. Now I am doomed to pay them over and over and over because I <i>can't terminate my account.</i>

Their telephone customer service doesn't work for anything that you can't do through automation. At the end of their automation message, they tell you to email them. It's a different address than is listed on the bill.

The small business service website actually says, I shit you not:

You're welcome to login to our site
to do business Monday through Saturday
7 a.m. to 12 a.m. (midnight) eastern time.

Um people, the web is "open" 24 hours.

The site has "lost" my login of three months ago. Hey, maybe I created the account after midnight!

As far as I'm concerned, AT&T no longer exists as a company. They are unable to handle the most basic of situations. It's a joke.

[jet_silver]

Ever since ATT took over IBM Global Network I've been aware that ATT is useless. IGN was really, really good and I had had their service for years, but ATT started fooling around with bandwidth and modem/subscriber ratio. Soon it was a plain ISP - except for the customer service. There wasn't any.

Now I am building a house. I have not even bothered to contact ATT for cable. They do not get to have their hardware on my land. Ever. They have developed a reputation for sending out bills regardless of whether they are providing a working service, and as you point out they don't have customer service so you can't tell them when something is wrong.

Second the motion, Tony. ATT is a hollow tree; may it fall over soon.

[jaguar]

A company here, one .tel recently went bust - one of the biggest colapses here ever due to a total lack of aworking billing nad customer servicesystem. It was genereating more than 3 times as many complaints as any other company when it went bust, taking nearly 1billion of inventment from packer and murdoch alone. Sounds to me like ATT might just do the same if they don't watch out, even in america they can only screw consumers *so* much.

[tw]

Originally posted by jaguar
A company here, one .tel recently went bust - one of the biggest colapses here ever due to a total lack of aworking billing nad customer servicesystem. It was genereating more than 3 times as many complaints as any other company when it went bust, taking nearly 1billion of inventment from packer and murdoch alone. Sounds to me like ATT might just do the same if they don't watch out, even in america they can only screw consumers *so* much.

Deregulation proved that anyone could setup a phone company. But billing and customer service was really the most difficult part of the business.

However when costs per call are less than 1 cent per minute and yet charge well over 10 cents per minute - then how can you lose with that kind of markup. AT&T Long Distance is losing $millions anyway.

OK so AT&T decided to switch to new technology (a decision they could make when the anti-American Robert Allen stepped down). Neat idea that is consistent with concepts I advocated 1) replacing circuit switch technology with packet switched, 2) transitioning from the obsolete technology circuit switched computers to packet switching using xDSL and POTS on the same wires, and 3) the elimination of the ISP as a internet gateway provider. This was posted what - in Cellar mark II (about 1996?) - probably when most had never yet heard of xDSL or ATM.

AT&T could do this major technology upgrade using cable. But AT&T (I just discovered) still fears technology. Their cable based phones will not use packet switching technology. Their cable based phone system will use obsolete technology circuit switching!

No. AT&T will not go bankrupt. We don't let failing (downsizing) companies go bankrupt. We let them be purchased.

That is why US West was taken over by Qwest. Qwest is going full out on providing xDSL everywhere. Why did he computer industry and internet providers take such a beating? The multimedia revolution on the drawing boards since the early 1990s - that forced Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, and Compaq to all but sue the baby bells for xDSL and the 1996 Federal Communicatons Act. The plans that cause Intel to create DIB computer architecture (PCI, AGP, N/S gates, Rambus, etc) and caused so many million miles of fiber optic to be installed - that revolution did not happen because too many 'last mile' companies in the telco industry still have the AT&T disease - a fear of innovation.

Toad is only experiencing a tip of the iceberg. AT&T even was billing me for long distance access when I was also billed for and serviced by MCI - and it took them months to correct the billings. AT&T is a classic example of what happens to America run by business school graduates. Robert Allen's was from Harvard Business.

Why the Internet meltdown? Look directly at the telco and cable industry - the people who provide the 'last mile'. They are the bottleneck.

AT&T is a classic example of a company that survives at the expense of America (GM, USX, and Bethlehem Steel are others). But to a less extent, most of the 'last mile' telecom industry has the same 'we fear innovation' attitude. In this region, we have seen less of it since Verizon (as Bell Atlantic) was the most innovative of the baby Bells.

[elSicomoro]

I had a "fun" experience with them while living in Maryland. Pffft...I'm sticking with MCI.

Sprint sucks too. They're still trying to bill me for long distance I quit using 2 months ago. Although, I am an unfortunate subscriber to their Earthlink service (thanks to their buyout of Mindspring last year). I dealt with them for about 6 months in St. Louis, and hated it. I was very happy with Mindspring. But I've had more problems dialing in since Earthlink took over and changed some dialup numbers.

[vsp]

I'm chugging along with AT&T's 7/7 plan right now ($7 per month for $.07/minute out-of-state and $.10/minute in-state long distance, plus a Worldnet account).

If you connect through the default software for this offer, you get a bloatware toolbar on your screen that feeds ads at you and can't be minimized as long as you're online. Ick. However, if you read the fine print and set up a Dial-Up Networking connection instead, you can avoid that and use WorldNet like any other ISP for about two bucks a month more than the long distance plan costs by itself.

So far, so good, and I even managed to get Pegasus Mail to handle Worldnet's POP and SMTP servers properly (which is more than I can say for AOL -- I gave up trying to figure out how to get my dad away from the braindead AOL mailer).

Which means I now have three Internet accounts -- a Unix shell at Net Access (my primary, though I have no idea what the dialup numbers are these days or what terminal-mode software's good under W98), PPP from Internet Connect in Broomall (from which I telnet to netaxs when needed) and now this AT&T thingy for my wife to use. If they ever get around to making SOME kind of broadband available in the West Goshen area, the count will rise again.

jeff. Neither Comcast nor Verizon seems to like my area.