9 ms·

AT&T says it has big problems. A T-Mobile salesman showed me how big

128 points by indigodaddy 5y ago

chomp 5y ago
Yeah, T-Mo may fighting a better fight, but their security issues dog them. Maybe the average consumer doesn’t care, but I find it hard to champion a brand that gives such a half effort to protecting their customers’ information.
- 0x000000001 5y ago
  How the tables turn. Have we forgotten that Snowden revealed all the phone companies handed over data/back doors to the NSA except TMobile? There is no perfect carrier; the best you can do is pick the one least likely to sell you out or get hacked today.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    Most people's threat model considers their personal data leaking to someone who might financially exploit them MUCH MUCH MUCH more of a threat than their call records ending up in bulk in some NSA db. Because most people are rational.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The problem with that position is that you know nothing about the other 2 players. Security breaches are always a matter of when, not if. If you think that AT&T, Verizon or any of the 20 MVNOs that interface with their systems don’t have similar vulnerabilities, I have a beautiful bridge in Brooklyn with your name on it.
abakker 5y ago
I can't say I'm surprised. my experience with my grandmother has been that ATT is either predatory or useless. I haven't bought anything in an att store in years - every iPhone I get comes straight from apple.
Someone1234 5y ago
I believe what they said happened, as it happened. Although, I'm not sure it is constructive to extrapolate it to either AT&T or T-Mobile as a brand though. I've been on both networks at various points and my recommendation is to check Google Map Reviews before heading to either one's stores as some are consistently dreadful and others are fine/good. Both get licked by Apple's stores though, but the staffing difference is very apparent upon entry (I'd guesstimate 100% more floor staff in Apple). At least they aren't as bad/predatory/unpleasant as car dealerships though. When I'd pick dental appointments over car shopping/buying, you know it is egregious. They turn what could be a "fun" experience into a stressful annoyance.
atty 5y ago
Completely anecdotal, but as someone who has used ATT and Comcast for internet, and ATT and Verizon for mobile, I’ve had better luck with both Comcast and Verizon with customer service. Which is really saying something, because I’m pretty sure Comcast and Verizon are some of the most hated brands in the US, and not for no reason. I’d love to give T-Mobile a try, but it seems like every year there’s a new massive security breach…. It does not inspire confidence.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  I switched to Ting recently at a co-workers suggestion after switching to Mint (total nightmare). It's been cheap and great, and they use Verizon towers. I have no affiliation, just a happy customer.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    I thought about leaving Ting for the ATT Walmart prepaid plan but will stay put for now.
    - artificialLimbs 5y ago
      I'm curious about why you might switch? Pay as you go is $10 + usage, unlimited T&T & 5GB data is $25. That's plenty data for me since I'm always around wifi.
      - selimthegrim 5y ago
        I have the $45 Unlimited (22GB) since my WiFi in NOLA is not much better than 25 down, 10 up (and since the recent hurricane not even that consistently although Cox promises things will be better than before this week) and had to buy a bunch of topups which annoyed me.
easton 5y ago
AT&T's (corporate) store service is absolutely terrible. I have money, a working phone (or the SIM from a broken phone), and want to upgrade. Why can't I hand you the money and get a new phone without 20 minutes of tapping around on an iPad? And god forbid you have a business account, then it'll take thirty or forty minutes because they have to look through your account to see if there's anything to fix, and then sometimes there's some flow for a business account that doesn't exist in their iPad app so they have to go to a PC. It's like the Apple Store problem except 10x worse since there's rarely anybody else in the AT&T store when I go there. I kept my last phone well after I should've probably replaced it because I didn't want to go to the store. Maybe they should try some secret shopping, it might show the flaws. Impulse buying a phone (not that it's something you should do, but probably something they want to encourage since nobody buys new phones anymore) is absolutely impossible right now. (What I'd really prefer is if they'd just allow me to give them money and just hand me the new phone, but inevitably there's some account crap that happens where the new phone won't activate properly and I have to get another phone to call 611 and figure it out.) Edit: It might just be because of my families phones being on a business account. We've tried to upgrade (or just buy the darn phone without a contract/loan) through the Apple Store before but they won't do it because their POS system can't handle AT&T's business accounts, and even unlocked devices need to be notated there for some reason.
- Guest42 5y ago
  Better than me, I had extensive up-sell attempts.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    I hate up selling. I specifically did all my business through your website/app to AVOID personal contact. Don't call me I'll call you (which is hopefully never).
- bluedino 5y ago
  You could skip the corporate store and go to an independent reseller. They'll give you fast service and more money for your device. Then you'll get your first bill and find they pulled three different tricks on you and you'll spend the next two weeks trying to get it l straightened out.
bognition 5y ago
Last Monday I bought 2 iphone 13 pros. One from Apple and the other from Verizon. (The Apple Store app on my phone wouldn't let me upgrade a number that wasn't attached to my iCloud account. So I stupidly bought it from verizon) We got the 13 pros in the mail on friday and neither me nor my wife liked the phone and we decided to return them. The return with Apple was easy and smooth. At the verizon store the manager immediately challenged me on why I was returning it. I said it was too big for my wife, he then asked what phone she had and then pulled up a chart showing how the two devices were effectively the same size. He claimed my wife was lying and that she would be fine with the 13 pro. I replied with thanks but my wife didn't want the phone so I'd like to return it. He then put me in a queue and told me the return would have a $50 restocking fee. The entire return experience was so terrible and hostile I almost walked to another carrier's store and moved all my lines. I may still do that. The overall experience did renew my desire to NEVER buy a device with verizon again. I can imagine that ATT and Verizon are largely in the same place, they're the behemoths in the market and no longer have to innovate for market share. So the way they increase margins is by fleecing their customers with "activation fees" and "restocking fees". Its great to hear that TMobile is stepping up the customer service game. This may be enough for me to switch.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  MVNOs are great. If you want to be on the Verizon network and happen to have Comcast, their xfinity mobile service is super cheap. You can buy one data pool and split it across your whole family, and the cost per GB is $15 or so. Unlike all the big carriers, they don't charge a per-line monthly access fee. I have five people on my family plan and the cost per line is almost always under $10/mo. If you need to be on AT&T's network, there are other MVNOs like Pure Talk, which has good customer service and pretty good pricing. One downside to MVNOs is they often lag behind the major carriers in getting support for smartwatches and cellular-capable tablets. But other than that, they're great!
  - kube-system 5y ago
    MVNOs are a mixed bag. Some are good, some cut every corner possible to reduce costs.
shmerl 5y ago
> The problem is I'm iPhone <...> If you have just one Android person on a group text, it throws everything Heh, for me it would be a reason to ditch something like that immediately. Lock-in irritates me.
- p1necone 5y ago
  Agreed - the solution to vendor lock-in should be getting out as fast as possible, not buying into it further.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  This feels like another spot where a judge could lay down a pretty easy beneficial anti-monopoly ruling (like the recent app store ones): make texting work properly w/ other platforms. It doesn't hurt the iPhone user experience in the slightest, and it doesn't cripple the brand... it just makes it easier for others to compete.
LeoPanthera 5y ago
I'm a (happy) T-Mobile customer and my favorite thing about them is that in 5+ years I've never had to go into a store. Their website was functional but not super intuitive a few years ago, but it keeps getting better, and upgrading my iPhone 11 to a 13 last week, and also my plan at the same time, was seamless. And now that I have 5G for the first time ever I'm shocked to be getting upwards of 400M down. I don't think any other network can give me no bandwidth cap, tethering, and free international roaming data for $70/month.
- TheJoeMan 5y ago
  Just a note I actually took my new phone into a brick and mortar and apparently my sim was so old it didn’t have all the new frequencies on it! So especially switching to 5G I’d recommend anyone else to go in once a few years
  - LeoPanthera 5y ago
    My new iPhone uses a T-Mobile eSIM, I didn't even have a choice, that was just the default. The SIM in my old phone was deactivated.
- indigodaddy 5y ago
  Is there no BW/throttling/data cap on tethering/hotspot also for T-Mobile?
  - LeoPanthera 5y ago
    No, on "Magenta Max" you get 40GB of unthrottled tethering, and then after that it's throttled to 256k or something nearly useless like that.
    - indigodaddy 5y ago
      Thank you for the clarification/info!
joecool1029 5y ago
AT&T would be in danger of bankruptcy if it were not for the fact that they are surviving off government welfare through the Firstnet contract[1]. It was only buildout requirements mandated by that contract that they even have a modestly functioning network. Their business plan has been to acquire some crappy Mexican carriers[2], DirecTV, as well as the new DISH contract. There's minimal investment otherwise, poor spectrum planning, and rent seeking (domestic roaming gouging using spectrum they were given for free in the 90's) in regions where T-Mobile and USCC don't have buildout.[3] [1] https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/342398-when-government-contracts-become-corporate-welfare https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/342398-whe... [2] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/at-t-to-buy-mexican-carrier-iusacell-for-2-5b/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/at-t-to-buy-mexican-carrier... [3]https://ruralwireless.org/industrys-wholesale-roaming-rates-reflect-price-gouging-by-national-operators/ https://ruralwireless.org/industrys-wholesale-roaming-rates-... In short, fuck AT&T.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The last good business move I think ATT made was getting exclusive access to iPhones in 2007 for five years or whatever it was. And that is why I’ve been paying them around ~$40 per line per month since. Actually, it was also due to them being the only big network with SIM cards I could pop out and use another country’s SIM. Verizon took forever to get SIM cards.
  - nerdwaller 5y ago
    The SIM was why I moved over from Verizon. I could sample/use/trade a lot of phones as I’ve always enjoyed playing with devices. On Verizon I had to go to a store to activate my devices and half the time the sales person would mark me as using an upgrade that I didn’t. I had to fight Verizon enough times before deciding enough was enough. My guess is the salespeople got some bonus or kudos for getting upgrades sold.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    > Verizon took forever to get SIM cards. CDMA phones never needed SIM until LTE came along. I once had a Verizon "global" featurephone that supported both CDMA and 2G GSM. It had a Verizon SIM for the GSM side but wasn't otherwise needed for non-roaming connectivity over CDMA.
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chrischen 5y ago
We can thank T-Mobile for shifting the industry away from comtracts to device installment plans. But what’s the moral of the story? That customer service and other things don’t matter if you can’t deliver the product (cell signal)?
petarb 5y ago
I’ve had T-Mobile for over 10 years in the SF Bay Area and can confirm T-Mobile is actually decent to deal with and service was good. I recently had to switch service to AT&T because they’re the only one with a service tower near my house in Marin. The AT&T employees were a PITA to deal with when getting a SIM so I just ended up ordering one on Amazon for a couple bucks and activated it via phone.
ianmf 5y ago
I am tired of dealing with cellphone services providers. I treat them as such, a service company. I buy my phones from directly from apple, never from ATT. I simply pay my monthly bill and when I upgrade, I hustle to have the "activation fee" waived. I have 6 lines under my plan, they usually give in. Maybe I should start looking into Business account like someone else mentioned here.
anozer 5y ago
Do you guys know what AT&T revenues are? Compare with FAANG.
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Causality1 5y ago
Interesting. I wonder if ATT's upcoming shift to a whitelist model for phone activation, thus forcing many of their customers to purchase new hardware, is also related to this rot.
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mchusma 5y ago
Somewhat related: this idea of adding a "digital waiting line" on top of a normal one is horrible, the author mentions this in ATT. Disneyland has done this with food, and it's really really irritating. Here is an example of what it is like to get Blue Milk at Star Wars Land in Disneyland: 1) order it in the app and pay for it. 2) it tells you when to go there 3) wait for your phone to turn green, with a group of other people staring at their phone. A person is there to make sure people without green screens don't get in line. 4) you are now allowed to get into a line and wait. 5) you get to the front, and you repeat the order. Someone makes it for you. I get the desire to replace cashier's with an app. But just let people place an order, give them a number, and let them know where they are in the line.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  Sounds like they need a Star Wars themed Automat.
  - jareklupinski 5y ago
    yea how hard would it be for Disney Imagineers to make a C3-PO bartender that understands all the galaxy's languages or paint a beer keg blue and white and give it wheels, i'll have a draft from the R2D2
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  What do you do if you don't have a smartphone?
  - codycraven 5y ago
    I'm sure it'd be cheaper for Disney to rent devices locked to their app for a day than pay for these line proctors and the person that's still taking the orders.
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    you die of starvation(?)
  - 5y ago
pkulak 5y ago
Is AT&T the new discount carrier now that T-Mobile has been buying up spectrum for the last decade? I just moved my whole family off them just to consolidate on a carrier I like a lot more, and in the process noticed that they actually had the cheapest per-meg data rates, by kind of a lot. It wasn't enough to keep me, but it was interesting.
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Glyptodon 5y ago
I don't really get why more people don't use MVNOs like Google Fi or Mint rather than ATT&T and Verizon.
- supertrope 5y ago
  If a significant proportion of the market switched, they’d cut prices on the proper brands and raise the wholesale rates. Retail stores and advertising work.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I prefer cutting out as many middlemen as possible. I figure if the seller is incentivized to provide the best service to the highest profit margin/least volatile customers. https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/?utm_content=body&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=00717909814145bca8687ea469f2ee05&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=oaophe https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri...
  - mox1 5y ago
    All of the major providers wholly own a MVNO now. The only difference is that during times of congestion you are not first line. Other than that it is probably the same billing systems, policies, etc. Unless you need to be first priority on a congested tower, not much reason to actually be on Tmo,Verizon,ATT.
rmason 5y ago
Many years ago I did coding for a web hosting company. They actually had a retail store in the front with the rest of us in the back. Twice a year an AT&T business sales guy would come through and he'd always have three trainees with him. The boss would never have the time to meet with him. So I interacted with him and trying to be helpful I told him when our contract was up. I said if you come by within 30 days of the contracts expiration you might have a chance at the business. He never even wrote the date down. He came through every six months on a set schedule and always with the three different trainees. I wondered if he even wanted the business? Or maybe felt they wouldn't let him be competitive. Either way he wasn't the guy AT&T wanted training other sales guys cause he set a poor example.
reactspa 5y ago
AT&T customer here. The customer service interactions are abysmal. I'm on a prepaid plan ($25/m all you can eat, but hi-speed internet taps out at 8GB... after that it's lo-speed internet). I kept getting texts that my phone will stop working with AT&T's network in Feb next year for some reason (it won't). And that there was a free phone waiting for me at the local AT&T shop. Cool. Why not get a free phone I thought. I went over to the store and showed the guy there the text. He said they were out of phones and gave me a number to call, and that they'd ship me a phone. (And the dude looked over my current phone and told me it would continue to work with the AT&T network after Feb). I call that number, am put on hold. It takes 62 minutes to get through to a live human. Explain the situation to him. They send me a phone. It's a garbage phone that loses all charge in 2 days despite not being used. It's available for $40 on AT&T's website (with a prepaid plan). No biggie. I still get those texts telling me there's a free phone waiting for me in my local AT&T shop. ---------- Another issue, on their website, when I was signing up for the prepaid plan (a year ago), I was forced to enter a "unit number" for my house... even though there is none. So I entered "Unit 0" and they accepted that.
logosmonkey 5y ago
Att was destroyed as soon as they sold to cingular. I worked as a billing call center rep for Cingular when they bought them. The spent millions to rebrand everything with AT&T including signs at small ballpark fields etc. They had a bounty system where you could get paid if you found an old AT&T sign that hadn't been converted. About six months in they realized that Cingular's brand was despised by customers and that AT&T was really well liked, at least on the cell side. As someone who had to do plan conversions it was obvious that every Cingular option was a huge downgrade compared to the AT&T plans. Across the board their service was worse, their plans were worse and the customer service we were allowed to provide was worse. Finally they decided to convert everything to AT&T to try and salvage their brand. Overall it worked for a little while I think. But ever since working for them I have never and will never be one of their customers. They were a truly awful company to work for and tied our hands when trying to help customers.
- logosmonkey 5y ago
  When I say they tied our hands one example would be that they had system hard caps on how much you could refund a customer for incorrect billings. Specifically 75$ per day per account. So if a customer was legitimately owed 300$ then you would need to write it down and each day refund them 75$ until they were refunded their due. I actively kept up with that but if you got someone else who didn't care as much, well good luck ever getting that 300$.
  - reilly3000 5y ago
    That just seems like such a waste of customer service time, and would chew up more time if the customer persisted, and more money if they pursued legal action of any sort. How short sighted can they be?
- lr1970 5y ago
  > Att was destroyed as soon as they sold to cingular. The story of AT&T and Cingular is much weirder, see [0]. Once there was AT&T Wireless that became Cingular (with the help of SBC). Then SBC bought AT&T (landline) then the combined AT&T bought Cingular that became AT&T Wireless again. [0] https://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/Cingular_timeline7.pdf https://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/Cingular_timelin... EDIT: typos
NoPicklez 5y ago
I worked in a large Telco store as a sales consultant for around 5 years and I have some views on this, having served thousands of customers. Organisations such as T-Mobile, AT&T and even the Telco I used to work for in Australia are fortunately/unfortunately made up of people just like you and I. This means that your experience of dealing with a telco or a brand is highly dependant on the person you speak with in store. These people aren't all incredibly motivated people, nor are they all at their very best everyday like they need to be as people in front of customers. It's no excuse, but it is a factor. I was around before and at the point the digital waiting line came into play and it is overall better than not having one. In this story, the problem is that clearly the store didn't have enough staff serving customers to visually justify that the store was busy enough to put someone in a queue. I worked in a shopping mall so customers who walked into a our visibly very busy store were happy that they could get some food or continue shopping while waiting. With regards to availability of staff, where I worked we followed a "My customer my responsibility model" where it was your responsibility to follow and resolve a customers problem. As stores provided not just sales but also customer service across consumer and business mobility products and internet services. The tricky part is that a customer might come into the store with a complex billing problem and it require almost an hour to resolve. In a store of perhaps 4 active consultants, on a busy day if 2-3 people are working on complex customer support queries, you wont have enough people available to advise people on what mobile to buy.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
My SO had to switch to a new unlocked phone she already had and needed to change a mini-SIM to micro-SIM. The process took two hours with AT&T and traveling to two different stores because "only corporate stores" can do certain things for customer service. They are completely clueless how to provision a fucking phone. Never mind the idiocy of issuing a non-convertible mini-SIM when she got it around 2013.
gabrielsroka 5y ago
I've had T-Mobile for years. I love them. I tried both AT&T and Verizon before. I hate them. My reception at home isn't great but I use Wi-Fi calling on my Android (I don't know if iPhone supports this too). It works really well.
apexalpha 5y ago
"Same," he replied. "Most of my friends and family have iPhones. If you have just one Android person on a group text, it throws everything." I don't understand what he means by this?
- ghuin 5y ago
  Group chats where everybody uses iPhone work through iMessage. If only one person switches to Android they get downgraded to MMS (open standard) which is much worse. Why these people don't use OTT apps like WhatsApp I'll never know.
  - JohnClark1337 5y ago
    A lot of times it's groups who have individuals who may get confused by apps like WhatsApp. Many people aren't willing to experiment with different messaging apps.
happyjack 5y ago
I use a local cell provider, but get to roam unlimited on ATT & TMobile when I'm out of state. Local cell providers are awesome; amazing service, good service & prices, etc. The only hiccup I've found is international calls on roaming are insanely expensive. I had a $100 phone call to South America roaming when it would have cost ~$10 in network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless...
- deleted 5y ago
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vlucas 5y ago
I recently switched away from AT&T, in large part because of their horrible customer service. This article really resonates. In early 2019, I added a new line to my plan in what was supposed to be a "free" phone (I was assured of this by the customer service rep on the phone), and wound up getting charged $499 + setup charges for it immediately on my next bill, in addition to what my bill normally is. Since my bill was on auto-pay, $750+ came out of my account that month. I called immediately to reverse it and turned off auto-pay. It took 10+ calls over the next 2 months to get the whole situation undone. My next bill was $1,000+ along with late charges and cutoff notices (I was not paying until it got fixed). It was so aggravating that I started a spreadsheet to keep track of all my support calls, who I spoke with, and when. I finally got the situation resolved and all the charges reversed after getting connected with a high-level tech support person in the US who actually had the power/authority to make the required changes to my account. Even though I stayed with AT&T for the next year or so after that (I was also moving houses and didn't want to change cell service at the time), the experience turned me off of AT&T forever. I now use Ting Wireless ( https://ting.com https://ting.com ) and am a very happy customer. They are an MVNO that uses AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile so they are not always 100% as reliable as the big providers directly, but the price is WAY cheaper ($25/mo per line with all taxes/fees included!), and the support is top notch. I can basically just call and connect directly with a customer service rep that can fix any issue I have at any time without hassle or transferring through 4 layers of call centers. Ting is worth a look if you are considering a switch.
exabrial 5y ago
Same experience with Verizon. I'm kicking myself for switching.

128 points by indigodaddy 5y ago

Yeah, T-Mo may fighting a better fight, but their security issues dog them. Maybe the average consumer doesn’t care, but I find it hard to champion a brand that gives such a half effort to protecting their customers’ information.

0x000000001 5y ago
How the tables turn. Have we forgotten that Snowden revealed all the phone companies handed over data/back doors to the NSA except TMobile? There is no perfect carrier; the best you can do is pick the one least likely to sell you out or get hacked today.
- xxpor 5y ago
  Most people's threat model considers their personal data leaking to someone who might financially exploit them MUCH MUCH MUCH more of a threat than their call records ending up in bulk in some NSA db. Because most people are rational.
Spooky23 5y ago
The problem with that position is that you know nothing about the other 2 players. Security breaches are always a matter of when, not if. If you think that AT&T, Verizon or any of the 20 MVNOs that interface with their systems don’t have similar vulnerabilities, I have a beautiful bridge in Brooklyn with your name on it.

abakker 5y ago

I can't say I'm surprised. my experience with my grandmother has been that ATT is either predatory or useless. I haven't bought anything in an att store in years - every iPhone I get comes straight from apple.

Someone1234 5y ago

I believe what they said happened, as it happened. Although, I'm not sure it is constructive to extrapolate it to either AT&T or T-Mobile as a brand though. I've been on both networks at various points and my recommendation is to check Google Map Reviews before heading to either one's stores as some are consistently dreadful and others are fine/good. Both get licked by Apple's stores though, but the staffing difference is very apparent upon entry (I'd guesstimate 100% more floor staff in Apple). At least they aren't as bad/predatory/unpleasant as car dealerships though. When I'd pick dental appointments over car shopping/buying, you know it is egregious. They turn what could be a "fun" experience into a stressful annoyance.

atty 5y ago

Completely anecdotal, but as someone who has used ATT and Comcast for internet, and ATT and Verizon for mobile, I’ve had better luck with both Comcast and Verizon with customer service. Which is really saying something, because I’m pretty sure Comcast and Verizon are some of the most hated brands in the US, and not for no reason. I’d love to give T-Mobile a try, but it seems like every year there’s a new massive security breach…. It does not inspire confidence.

artificialLimbs 5y ago
I switched to Ting recently at a co-workers suggestion after switching to Mint (total nightmare). It's been cheap and great, and they use Verizon towers. I have no affiliation, just a happy customer.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I thought about leaving Ting for the ATT Walmart prepaid plan but will stay put for now.
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    I'm curious about why you might switch? Pay as you go is $10 + usage, unlimited T&T & 5GB data is $25. That's plenty data for me since I'm always around wifi.
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      I have the $45 Unlimited (22GB) since my WiFi in NOLA is not much better than 25 down, 10 up (and since the recent hurricane not even that consistently although Cox promises things will be better than before this week) and had to buy a bunch of topups which annoyed me.

easton 5y ago

AT&T's (corporate) store service is absolutely terrible. I have money, a working phone (or the SIM from a broken phone), and want to upgrade. Why can't I hand you the money and get a new phone without 20 minutes of tapping around on an iPad? And god forbid you have a business account, then it'll take thirty or forty minutes because they have to look through your account to see if there's anything to fix, and then sometimes there's some flow for a business account that doesn't exist in their iPad app so they have to go to a PC. It's like the Apple Store problem except 10x worse since there's rarely anybody else in the AT&T store when I go there. I kept my last phone well after I should've probably replaced it because I didn't want to go to the store. Maybe they should try some secret shopping, it might show the flaws. Impulse buying a phone (not that it's something you should do, but probably something they want to encourage since nobody buys new phones anymore) is absolutely impossible right now. (What I'd really prefer is if they'd just allow me to give them money and just hand me the new phone, but inevitably there's some account crap that happens where the new phone won't activate properly and I have to get another phone to call 611 and figure it out.) Edit: It might just be because of my families phones being on a business account. We've tried to upgrade (or just buy the darn phone without a contract/loan) through the Apple Store before but they won't do it because their POS system can't handle AT&T's business accounts, and even unlocked devices need to be notated there for some reason.

Guest42 5y ago
Better than me, I had extensive up-sell attempts.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  I hate up selling. I specifically did all my business through your website/app to AVOID personal contact. Don't call me I'll call you (which is hopefully never).
bluedino 5y ago
You could skip the corporate store and go to an independent reseller. They'll give you fast service and more money for your device. Then you'll get your first bill and find they pulled three different tricks on you and you'll spend the next two weeks trying to get it l straightened out.

bognition 5y ago

Last Monday I bought 2 iphone 13 pros. One from Apple and the other from Verizon. (The Apple Store app on my phone wouldn't let me upgrade a number that wasn't attached to my iCloud account. So I stupidly bought it from verizon) We got the 13 pros in the mail on friday and neither me nor my wife liked the phone and we decided to return them. The return with Apple was easy and smooth. At the verizon store the manager immediately challenged me on why I was returning it. I said it was too big for my wife, he then asked what phone she had and then pulled up a chart showing how the two devices were effectively the same size. He claimed my wife was lying and that she would be fine with the 13 pro. I replied with thanks but my wife didn't want the phone so I'd like to return it. He then put me in a queue and told me the return would have a $50 restocking fee. The entire return experience was so terrible and hostile I almost walked to another carrier's store and moved all my lines. I may still do that. The overall experience did renew my desire to NEVER buy a device with verizon again. I can imagine that ATT and Verizon are largely in the same place, they're the behemoths in the market and no longer have to innovate for market share. So the way they increase margins is by fleecing their customers with "activation fees" and "restocking fees". Its great to hear that TMobile is stepping up the customer service game. This may be enough for me to switch.

gnicholas 5y ago
MVNOs are great. If you want to be on the Verizon network and happen to have Comcast, their xfinity mobile service is super cheap. You can buy one data pool and split it across your whole family, and the cost per GB is $15 or so. Unlike all the big carriers, they don't charge a per-line monthly access fee. I have five people on my family plan and the cost per line is almost always under $10/mo. If you need to be on AT&T's network, there are other MVNOs like Pure Talk, which has good customer service and pretty good pricing. One downside to MVNOs is they often lag behind the major carriers in getting support for smartwatches and cellular-capable tablets. But other than that, they're great!
- kube-system 5y ago
  MVNOs are a mixed bag. Some are good, some cut every corner possible to reduce costs.

shmerl 5y ago

> The problem is I'm iPhone <...> If you have just one Android person on a group text, it throws everything Heh, for me it would be a reason to ditch something like that immediately. Lock-in irritates me.

p1necone 5y ago
Agreed - the solution to vendor lock-in should be getting out as fast as possible, not buying into it further.
bpodgursky 5y ago
This feels like another spot where a judge could lay down a pretty easy beneficial anti-monopoly ruling (like the recent app store ones): make texting work properly w/ other platforms. It doesn't hurt the iPhone user experience in the slightest, and it doesn't cripple the brand... it just makes it easier for others to compete.

LeoPanthera 5y ago

I'm a (happy) T-Mobile customer and my favorite thing about them is that in 5+ years I've never had to go into a store. Their website was functional but not super intuitive a few years ago, but it keeps getting better, and upgrading my iPhone 11 to a 13 last week, and also my plan at the same time, was seamless. And now that I have 5G for the first time ever I'm shocked to be getting upwards of 400M down. I don't think any other network can give me no bandwidth cap, tethering, and free international roaming data for $70/month.

TheJoeMan 5y ago
Just a note I actually took my new phone into a brick and mortar and apparently my sim was so old it didn’t have all the new frequencies on it! So especially switching to 5G I’d recommend anyone else to go in once a few years
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  My new iPhone uses a T-Mobile eSIM, I didn't even have a choice, that was just the default. The SIM in my old phone was deactivated.
indigodaddy 5y ago
Is there no BW/throttling/data cap on tethering/hotspot also for T-Mobile?
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  No, on "Magenta Max" you get 40GB of unthrottled tethering, and then after that it's throttled to 256k or something nearly useless like that.
  - indigodaddy 5y ago
    Thank you for the clarification/info!

joecool1029 5y ago

AT&T would be in danger of bankruptcy if it were not for the fact that they are surviving off government welfare through the Firstnet contract[1]. It was only buildout requirements mandated by that contract that they even have a modestly functioning network. Their business plan has been to acquire some crappy Mexican carriers[2], DirecTV, as well as the new DISH contract. There's minimal investment otherwise, poor spectrum planning, and rent seeking (domestic roaming gouging using spectrum they were given for free in the 90's) in regions where T-Mobile and USCC don't have buildout.[3] [1] https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/342398-when-government-contracts-become-corporate-welfare https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/342398-whe... [2] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/at-t-to-buy-mexican-carrier-iusacell-for-2-5b/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/at-t-to-buy-mexican-carrier... [3]https://ruralwireless.org/industrys-wholesale-roaming-rates-reflect-price-gouging-by-national-operators/ https://ruralwireless.org/industrys-wholesale-roaming-rates-... In short, fuck AT&T.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The last good business move I think ATT made was getting exclusive access to iPhones in 2007 for five years or whatever it was. And that is why I’ve been paying them around ~$40 per line per month since. Actually, it was also due to them being the only big network with SIM cards I could pop out and use another country’s SIM. Verizon took forever to get SIM cards.
- nerdwaller 5y ago
  The SIM was why I moved over from Verizon. I could sample/use/trade a lot of phones as I’ve always enjoyed playing with devices. On Verizon I had to go to a store to activate my devices and half the time the sales person would mark me as using an upgrade that I didn’t. I had to fight Verizon enough times before deciding enough was enough. My guess is the salespeople got some bonus or kudos for getting upgrades sold.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  > Verizon took forever to get SIM cards. CDMA phones never needed SIM until LTE came along. I once had a Verizon "global" featurephone that supported both CDMA and 2G GSM. It had a Verizon SIM for the GSM side but wasn't otherwise needed for non-roaming connectivity over CDMA.

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chrischen 5y ago

We can thank T-Mobile for shifting the industry away from comtracts to device installment plans. But what’s the moral of the story? That customer service and other things don’t matter if you can’t deliver the product (cell signal)?

petarb 5y ago

I’ve had T-Mobile for over 10 years in the SF Bay Area and can confirm T-Mobile is actually decent to deal with and service was good. I recently had to switch service to AT&T because they’re the only one with a service tower near my house in Marin. The AT&T employees were a PITA to deal with when getting a SIM so I just ended up ordering one on Amazon for a couple bucks and activated it via phone.

ianmf 5y ago

I am tired of dealing with cellphone services providers. I treat them as such, a service company. I buy my phones from directly from apple, never from ATT. I simply pay my monthly bill and when I upgrade, I hustle to have the "activation fee" waived. I have 6 lines under my plan, they usually give in. Maybe I should start looking into Business account like someone else mentioned here.

anozer 5y ago

Do you guys know what AT&T revenues are? Compare with FAANG.

dang 5y ago
Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Causality1 5y ago

Interesting. I wonder if ATT's upcoming shift to a whitelist model for phone activation, thus forcing many of their customers to purchase new hardware, is also related to this rot.

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mchusma 5y ago

Somewhat related: this idea of adding a "digital waiting line" on top of a normal one is horrible, the author mentions this in ATT. Disneyland has done this with food, and it's really really irritating. Here is an example of what it is like to get Blue Milk at Star Wars Land in Disneyland: 1) order it in the app and pay for it. 2) it tells you when to go there 3) wait for your phone to turn green, with a group of other people staring at their phone. A person is there to make sure people without green screens don't get in line. 4) you are now allowed to get into a line and wait. 5) you get to the front, and you repeat the order. Someone makes it for you. I get the desire to replace cashier's with an app. But just let people place an order, give them a number, and let them know where they are in the line.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Sounds like they need a Star Wars themed Automat.
- jareklupinski 5y ago
  yea how hard would it be for Disney Imagineers to make a C3-PO bartender that understands all the galaxy's languages or paint a beer keg blue and white and give it wheels, i'll have a draft from the R2D2
LeoPanthera 5y ago
What do you do if you don't have a smartphone?
- codycraven 5y ago
  I'm sure it'd be cheaper for Disney to rent devices locked to their app for a day than pay for these line proctors and the person that's still taking the orders.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  you die of starvation(?)
- 5y ago

pkulak 5y ago

Is AT&T the new discount carrier now that T-Mobile has been buying up spectrum for the last decade? I just moved my whole family off them just to consolidate on a carrier I like a lot more, and in the process noticed that they actually had the cheapest per-meg data rates, by kind of a lot. It wasn't enough to keep me, but it was interesting.

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Glyptodon 5y ago

I don't really get why more people don't use MVNOs like Google Fi or Mint rather than ATT&T and Verizon.

supertrope 5y ago
If a significant proportion of the market switched, they’d cut prices on the proper brands and raise the wholesale rates. Retail stores and advertising work.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
I prefer cutting out as many middlemen as possible. I figure if the seller is incentivized to provide the best service to the highest profit margin/least volatile customers. https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/?utm_content=body&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=00717909814145bca8687ea469f2ee05&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=oaophe https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri...
- mox1 5y ago
  All of the major providers wholly own a MVNO now. The only difference is that during times of congestion you are not first line. Other than that it is probably the same billing systems, policies, etc. Unless you need to be first priority on a congested tower, not much reason to actually be on Tmo,Verizon,ATT.

rmason 5y ago

Many years ago I did coding for a web hosting company. They actually had a retail store in the front with the rest of us in the back. Twice a year an AT&T business sales guy would come through and he'd always have three trainees with him. The boss would never have the time to meet with him. So I interacted with him and trying to be helpful I told him when our contract was up. I said if you come by within 30 days of the contracts expiration you might have a chance at the business. He never even wrote the date down. He came through every six months on a set schedule and always with the three different trainees. I wondered if he even wanted the business? Or maybe felt they wouldn't let him be competitive. Either way he wasn't the guy AT&T wanted training other sales guys cause he set a poor example.

reactspa 5y ago

AT&T customer here. The customer service interactions are abysmal. I'm on a prepaid plan ($25/m all you can eat, but hi-speed internet taps out at 8GB... after that it's lo-speed internet). I kept getting texts that my phone will stop working with AT&T's network in Feb next year for some reason (it won't). And that there was a free phone waiting for me at the local AT&T shop. Cool. Why not get a free phone I thought. I went over to the store and showed the guy there the text. He said they were out of phones and gave me a number to call, and that they'd ship me a phone. (And the dude looked over my current phone and told me it would continue to work with the AT&T network after Feb). I call that number, am put on hold. It takes 62 minutes to get through to a live human. Explain the situation to him. They send me a phone. It's a garbage phone that loses all charge in 2 days despite not being used. It's available for $40 on AT&T's website (with a prepaid plan). No biggie. I still get those texts telling me there's a free phone waiting for me in my local AT&T shop. ---------- Another issue, on their website, when I was signing up for the prepaid plan (a year ago), I was forced to enter a "unit number" for my house... even though there is none. So I entered "Unit 0" and they accepted that.

logosmonkey 5y ago

Att was destroyed as soon as they sold to cingular. I worked as a billing call center rep for Cingular when they bought them. The spent millions to rebrand everything with AT&T including signs at small ballpark fields etc. They had a bounty system where you could get paid if you found an old AT&T sign that hadn't been converted. About six months in they realized that Cingular's brand was despised by customers and that AT&T was really well liked, at least on the cell side. As someone who had to do plan conversions it was obvious that every Cingular option was a huge downgrade compared to the AT&T plans. Across the board their service was worse, their plans were worse and the customer service we were allowed to provide was worse. Finally they decided to convert everything to AT&T to try and salvage their brand. Overall it worked for a little while I think. But ever since working for them I have never and will never be one of their customers. They were a truly awful company to work for and tied our hands when trying to help customers.

logosmonkey 5y ago
When I say they tied our hands one example would be that they had system hard caps on how much you could refund a customer for incorrect billings. Specifically 75$ per day per account. So if a customer was legitimately owed 300$ then you would need to write it down and each day refund them 75$ until they were refunded their due. I actively kept up with that but if you got someone else who didn't care as much, well good luck ever getting that 300$.
- reilly3000 5y ago
  That just seems like such a waste of customer service time, and would chew up more time if the customer persisted, and more money if they pursued legal action of any sort. How short sighted can they be?
lr1970 5y ago
> Att was destroyed as soon as they sold to cingular. The story of AT&T and Cingular is much weirder, see [0]. Once there was AT&T Wireless that became Cingular (with the help of SBC). Then SBC bought AT&T (landline) then the combined AT&T bought Cingular that became AT&T Wireless again. [0] https://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/Cingular_timeline7.pdf https://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/Cingular_timelin... EDIT: typos

NoPicklez 5y ago

I worked in a large Telco store as a sales consultant for around 5 years and I have some views on this, having served thousands of customers. Organisations such as T-Mobile, AT&T and even the Telco I used to work for in Australia are fortunately/unfortunately made up of people just like you and I. This means that your experience of dealing with a telco or a brand is highly dependant on the person you speak with in store. These people aren't all incredibly motivated people, nor are they all at their very best everyday like they need to be as people in front of customers. It's no excuse, but it is a factor. I was around before and at the point the digital waiting line came into play and it is overall better than not having one. In this story, the problem is that clearly the store didn't have enough staff serving customers to visually justify that the store was busy enough to put someone in a queue. I worked in a shopping mall so customers who walked into a our visibly very busy store were happy that they could get some food or continue shopping while waiting. With regards to availability of staff, where I worked we followed a "My customer my responsibility model" where it was your responsibility to follow and resolve a customers problem. As stores provided not just sales but also customer service across consumer and business mobility products and internet services. The tricky part is that a customer might come into the store with a complex billing problem and it require almost an hour to resolve. In a store of perhaps 4 active consultants, on a busy day if 2-3 people are working on complex customer support queries, you wont have enough people available to advise people on what mobile to buy.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

My SO had to switch to a new unlocked phone she already had and needed to change a mini-SIM to micro-SIM. The process took two hours with AT&T and traveling to two different stores because "only corporate stores" can do certain things for customer service. They are completely clueless how to provision a fucking phone. Never mind the idiocy of issuing a non-convertible mini-SIM when she got it around 2013.

gabrielsroka 5y ago

I've had T-Mobile for years. I love them. I tried both AT&T and Verizon before. I hate them. My reception at home isn't great but I use Wi-Fi calling on my Android (I don't know if iPhone supports this too). It works really well.

apexalpha 5y ago

"Same," he replied. "Most of my friends and family have iPhones. If you have just one Android person on a group text, it throws everything." I don't understand what he means by this?

ghuin 5y ago
Group chats where everybody uses iPhone work through iMessage. If only one person switches to Android they get downgraded to MMS (open standard) which is much worse. Why these people don't use OTT apps like WhatsApp I'll never know.
- JohnClark1337 5y ago
  A lot of times it's groups who have individuals who may get confused by apps like WhatsApp. Many people aren't willing to experiment with different messaging apps.

happyjack 5y ago

I use a local cell provider, but get to roam unlimited on ATT & TMobile when I'm out of state. Local cell providers are awesome; amazing service, good service & prices, etc. The only hiccup I've found is international calls on roaming are insanely expensive. I had a $100 phone call to South America roaming when it would have cost ~$10 in network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless...

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vlucas 5y ago

I recently switched away from AT&T, in large part because of their horrible customer service. This article really resonates. In early 2019, I added a new line to my plan in what was supposed to be a "free" phone (I was assured of this by the customer service rep on the phone), and wound up getting charged $499 + setup charges for it immediately on my next bill, in addition to what my bill normally is. Since my bill was on auto-pay, $750+ came out of my account that month. I called immediately to reverse it and turned off auto-pay. It took 10+ calls over the next 2 months to get the whole situation undone. My next bill was $1,000+ along with late charges and cutoff notices (I was not paying until it got fixed). It was so aggravating that I started a spreadsheet to keep track of all my support calls, who I spoke with, and when. I finally got the situation resolved and all the charges reversed after getting connected with a high-level tech support person in the US who actually had the power/authority to make the required changes to my account. Even though I stayed with AT&T for the next year or so after that (I was also moving houses and didn't want to change cell service at the time), the experience turned me off of AT&T forever. I now use Ting Wireless ( https://ting.com https://ting.com ) and am a very happy customer. They are an MVNO that uses AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile so they are not always 100% as reliable as the big providers directly, but the price is WAY cheaper ($25/mo per line with all taxes/fees included!), and the support is top notch. I can basically just call and connect directly with a customer service rep that can fix any issue I have at any time without hassle or transferring through 4 layers of call centers. Ting is worth a look if you are considering a switch.

exabrial 5y ago

Same experience with Verizon. I'm kicking myself for switching.