5 ms·

AT&T Is A Big, Steaming Heap Of Failure

61 points by vaksel 17y ago

ErrantX 17y ago
honestly, this is the BEST TC post I have read in a long while. Extremely well written / crafted and contains serious, sensible points. I’m so pissed off that I kind of want to call AT&T and demand that they call each of the people I missed calls from and personally apologize. Instead, I’m writing them this very public condemnation. I would do the former. I really would. Here in the UK phone companies have such a monopoly amongst themselves. As a consumer I feel regularly screwed. At the moment I am stuck with a shit 18 month old phone because it is out of warranty and upgrading to a newer model (despite being a 10 yr long customer of my current company!) is too expensive outside of the limited free upgrade time. I sympathize heavily. No one hacks together a phone startup because it is such a closed business. Look how much awesome stuff developed when starting up on the web becomes easy - I hope mobile networks go the same way.
- viraptor 17y ago
  What do you mean by "Here in the UK phone companies have such a monopoly amongst themselves."? There's a choice between voda, orange, t, o2 and others and it doesn't seem so bad. Of course O2 seems to have the same problems like at&t - not good enough infrastructure and not enough coverage to handle iphones properly (and now they will get Pre as well, unfortunately). And there are crappy carriers like Three which should DIAF long ago. But otherwise, many offers are sensible. You're forced to go the 18 months contract route mostly when you're buying the cheapest stuff, which is fair enough. Otherwise, I don't think the situation is bad at all.
- jrockway 17y ago
  At the moment I am stuck with a shit 18 month old phone because it is out of warranty and upgrading to a newer model (despite being a 10 yr long customer of my current company!) is too expensive outside of the limited free upgrade time. This may surprise you, but that's actually how much a phone costs. Turns out we haven't quite gotten them to grow on trees yet. I can't think of any industry (other than video gaming) where someone gives you something for free so you'll use their service; count the one free phone every 2 years as a blessing. If you want the latest-and-greatest, you have to buy it, just like with everything else.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    To be 100% fair I have more than paid for my phone since signing the contract :) I rang them up wanting a new phone and asking if they could do me a deal if I agreed to a higher monthly fee and a full 24 month contract (the phone aimed at being an Iphone). When I first rang them last month there was 6 months left on the contract and they were quite happy to do this - except they wanted the full 6 months paid off first! That's more than the phones original value. I offered to pay the value of the phone (seeing as they get my custom for 24 months locked in - and I am a 10yr customer). not interested. I agree - trying to get something for nothing is silly :) but I think I deserve some reward for my loyalty? Especially as I will actually be paying for the phone AND increasing my contract amount (and locking in for 24 months - which really means forever as it's an Iphone :))
- tbeseda 17y ago
  I have to disagree about the quality of the composition of the article. While the topic is interesting and even a bit redeeming for TC, the writing falls short of good journalism. I'm not sure mobile networks will ever go the way of the web startup. I think they had been there before, in their early days. If anything, we ought to hope the web startup doesn't go the way of mobile service providers...
spoondan 17y ago
I loathe AT&T. It mistreats employees and customers. It overcharges and delivers astonishingly poor service. It makes regular billing "mistakes". It willingly, almost gleefully, assists in the violation of its customers rights and privacy. It is a paragon of inefficiency. It fights against progress to keep its anachronistic business model relevant. It uses the legal system as a club. And it ensures that any actions brought against it can at best be Pyrrhic victories. In short, it is truly every bad thing Microsoft has ever been alleged to be and worse. I don't own an iPhone solely because I want less to do with AT&T than I do now.
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  This is also the company whose sales reps swear up and down, to this day, that they don't offer dry loop DSL "because there is no demand". Of course, if you know the magic phone number, you can call the dry loop division directly, and they are as helpful as can be. I asked one once why they were so hidden... she answered: politics.
  - miles 17y ago
    And the magic phone number is...? 1-800-264-0002 But you might want to do a bit of research before signing up: Get AT&T Dry Loop/Naked DSL In 5 Minutes http://consumerist.com/342490/ http://consumerist.com/342490/ AT&T Dry Loop DSL Hard To Find, Get And Cancel http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Dry-Loop-DSL-Hard-To-Find-Get-And-Cancel-100952 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Dry-Loop-DSL-Hard-To-...
    - Xichekolas 17y ago
      Ah yeah I suppose I should have posted it! That is exactly the number I have. I was told it's for the region that includes Texas, but like you say, they can forward you on where you need to go, and the people at that number tend to actually be helpful.
  - 4buot 17y ago
    i never had a problem getting stand-alone dsl...the phone numbers are secret because local carriers never really integrated into Bell Mobility, and Bell Mobility never really integrated into ATT...they are basically separate companies all named ATT to confuse you.
brk 17y ago
Wow, I just checked the voicemail on my iPhone and I had 12 (!) voicemails queued up with no indications that I had waiting messages. AT&T service has been horrible since I got my iPhone (~ 1 year). I kept a blackberry on Verizon, which is my primary "phone" (the iPhone has been more for email/web). However, I have a VoIP # as my primary phone that rings my desk, vzw phone and att phone all at once. Apparently a good number of calls ended up in my att mailbox, with no indications.
dattaway 17y ago
I "cancelled" my AT&T account a few months ago. Somehow the account is still open, but accumulating monthly negative charges (credit.) No script from their customer support can resolve this issue. Technical glitches can be fascinating and this company has no shortage in my experiences with them.
- jf 17y ago
  Complain to the FCC. http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm Just be sure to reply to every piece of mail that you get from the FCC and AT&T on time.
quizbiz 17y ago
How about one of us create a landing page with a bullet lists of AT&T complaints? I don't care enough but we could all link to the page at the bottom of our websites just with the word ATT[1] and soon enough when people search for AT&T's corporate page, they will find a list of complaints. People will take note and thus AT&T will be forced to take note as well. On top of that: - Update your twitter with your AT&T complaint and give it the hashtag #ATT. - Contact The Consumerist Blog, try to get their awareness (is anyone connected to them?). - Any other ideas? Let's start a movement. Stop complaining and start acting. I already did my part, I'm no longer an ATT customer. --- [1] Based on http://www.google.com/trends?q=AT%26T%2C+AT+and+T%2C+ATT http://www.google.com/trends?q=AT%26T%2C+AT+and+T%2C+ATT
jrockway 17y ago
What I get out of this is that it's best to avoid doing business with Apple's customers. (Nobody has ever filed a class-action lawsuit against Dell for using 6-bit LCDs instead of 8-bit LCDs.) They are much more demanding than the average customer -- Apple makes AT&T provide special exclusive features, and then their customers hold them to higher standards. "There isn't enough bandwidth." "Torrents download too slowly!" "Everything is too expensive." Not to sound like an AT&T fanboi, but the other providers are just as bad. The pricing is the same, you get locked in, and the bandwidth isn't even as good. (At least AT&T lets me use any GSM phone. Try that with Verizon.) The US just doesn't have the infrastructure to provide exceptional cell-phone service (like, say, Japan does; with millions of people in a very tiny space). With people constantly demanding more bandwidth for less money, I can't imagine there is much room in the budget to upgrade the 3G network in the middle of nowhere. Sorry, it's the reality of living so spread apart.
- maukdaddy 17y ago
  No this isn't about picky Apple fans. AT&T is truly shitty. I also switched from Verizon to AT&T for the iPhone and I loathe every minute I have to spend on AT&T's shitty network. Here in Chicago I drop every other call on average, and the ones that manage to stay up are usually full of garbled noise. No signal inside buildings that I used to get full strength on Verizon. Still no MMS even though their other phones have had the feature for ages. God forbid you want to use the network in a crowded venue - Solider Field, Wrigley, Lollapalooza, network is shit anytime there are more than 5000 people nearby. Simply unacceptable service in a city this size.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    I live downtown and have AT&T. I've never had a problem. Maybe it's just the iPhone that sucks?
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
- vaksel 17y ago
tptacek 17y ago
I'm not seeing Siegler acknowledge whether or not he had enabled TechCrunch's "safe" AT&T tethering hack, which is notorious for messing up voicemail. This despite multiple commenters asking him. (I think TC readers may have another nasty surprise waiting when AT&T finally gets to running 'awk' on the logfiles those tethering sessions land in.)
- tsetse-fly 17y ago
  Can anyone that hasn't enabled tethering confirm that their visual voicemail hasn't been working? There were a slew of people on the MacRumors forums that were tethering and didn't realize that their visual voicemail had been broken for days.
  - physcab 17y ago
    If people ever called me I would be able to tell.
    - quizbiz 17y ago
      Give people a reason to need to call you.
  - jsz0 17y ago
    Yep it's a well known side effect of some of the tethering hacks. This gentleman may have created his own problem and is now having a hissy over it.
  - santry 17y ago
    FWIW, I've been using the tethering hack from http://help.benm.at http://help.benm.at on an iPhone 3GS and visual voicemail has been working just fine.
    - treyp 17y ago
      try setting your greeting
there 17y ago
so at&t can pay a ton of money to upgrade its network (which apparently isn't going to be that much faster) and then lose the exclusive contract with apple, in the process losing lots of customers and no longer gaining new customers when apple releases new iphones. or, it can not upgrade its network and just pay apple a much smaller amount to keep them locked into at&t, keeping all of its locked-in customers while increasing their prices, and continue to get new customers every time apple comes out with a new iphone. apple gets to sell more phones while pointing the finger at at&t for any network problems. i wonder which one they'll do...
- stavrianos 17y ago
  How do you figure that "and pay apple a much smaller amount to..." bit? If it's in Apple's best interests to leave, then they will. I certainly don't think that Apple will collude with AT&T to perpetuate shitty service.
jsz0 17y ago
Apple should seriously consider buying Sprint. When they first struck a deal with Cingular one of my first thoughts was they were picking a carrier that was within their reach to purchase down the road. Obviously AT&T had the same idea though. Given Apple's position in mobile electronics it would make a lot of sense to own their own data network. EVDO data in every device. iTunes Store over EVDO on every iPod. Extremely aggressive first party iPhone pricing on Sprint (while still selling a GSM model at a higher cost) They could really shake things up if they wanted to.
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  That is actually possible too, since Sprint's market cap is only $12.8b, and Apple's is $135b. A deal that is part cash, mostly Apple stock would probably go down well with current Sprint shareholders (the ones I know are fairly pessimistic about Sprint's future, but are holding in the hopes that the Pre helps, or it gets acquired for a premium). Sprint definitely has a history of horrible customer service, which maybe Apple could finally slay. I live in their home market (KC), so obviously coverage is great here, but not sure if it would be sufficient nationwide to be worth it to Apple. That said, Amazon apparently thinks coverage is sufficient for the Kindle. Definitely an interesting idea... who knows if Apple really wants to bother running the network though. It could take a while to raise network and customer service quality to meet Apple-customer expectations (ie. perfection), tarnishing Apple's hard-earned brand name along the way. Claiming all the successes (the device) and blaming all the problems (the network) on AT&T could be convenient.
- derefr 17y ago
  Apple would enjoy many benefits from buying a telecom company, but there's one factor that would almost certainly prevent it: anything bad the telecom did would then be blamed by the public (even if completely irrationally) on Apple. Apple makes most of their money from being the "sexy consumer electronics company", and no matter how you try to spin a telecom, you can't make it sexy. The only way Apple could successfully buy out a telecom would involve replacing the entire culture of the telecom with Apple's own dedication-to-snobby-perfection culture, which itself would involve replacing most of the employees and management with Apple's own. They'd have no one left to make computers!
charrington 17y ago
I totally agree that my new iPhone is basically an iPod touch. I get no AT&T signal at my house and marginal signal elsewhere. And it looks like I don't even get voicemails reliably. I should cancel my AT&T contract (there is a 30 day grace period) and get an iPod touch instead. There is no phone in the iPhone thanks to AT&T.

61 points by vaksel 17y ago

honestly, this is the BEST TC post I have read in a long while. Extremely well written / crafted and contains serious, sensible points. I’m so pissed off that I kind of want to call AT&T and demand that they call each of the people I missed calls from and personally apologize. Instead, I’m writing them this very public condemnation. I would do the former. I really would. Here in the UK phone companies have such a monopoly amongst themselves. As a consumer I feel regularly screwed. At the moment I am stuck with a shit 18 month old phone because it is out of warranty and upgrading to a newer model (despite being a 10 yr long customer of my current company!) is too expensive outside of the limited free upgrade time. I sympathize heavily. No one hacks together a phone startup because it is such a closed business. Look how much awesome stuff developed when starting up on the web becomes easy - I hope mobile networks go the same way.

viraptor 17y ago
What do you mean by "Here in the UK phone companies have such a monopoly amongst themselves."? There's a choice between voda, orange, t, o2 and others and it doesn't seem so bad. Of course O2 seems to have the same problems like at&t - not good enough infrastructure and not enough coverage to handle iphones properly (and now they will get Pre as well, unfortunately). And there are crappy carriers like Three which should DIAF long ago. But otherwise, many offers are sensible. You're forced to go the 18 months contract route mostly when you're buying the cheapest stuff, which is fair enough. Otherwise, I don't think the situation is bad at all.
jrockway 17y ago
At the moment I am stuck with a shit 18 month old phone because it is out of warranty and upgrading to a newer model (despite being a 10 yr long customer of my current company!) is too expensive outside of the limited free upgrade time. This may surprise you, but that's actually how much a phone costs. Turns out we haven't quite gotten them to grow on trees yet. I can't think of any industry (other than video gaming) where someone gives you something for free so you'll use their service; count the one free phone every 2 years as a blessing. If you want the latest-and-greatest, you have to buy it, just like with everything else.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  To be 100% fair I have more than paid for my phone since signing the contract :) I rang them up wanting a new phone and asking if they could do me a deal if I agreed to a higher monthly fee and a full 24 month contract (the phone aimed at being an Iphone). When I first rang them last month there was 6 months left on the contract and they were quite happy to do this - except they wanted the full 6 months paid off first! That's more than the phones original value. I offered to pay the value of the phone (seeing as they get my custom for 24 months locked in - and I am a 10yr customer). not interested. I agree - trying to get something for nothing is silly :) but I think I deserve some reward for my loyalty? Especially as I will actually be paying for the phone AND increasing my contract amount (and locking in for 24 months - which really means forever as it's an Iphone :))
tbeseda 17y ago
I have to disagree about the quality of the composition of the article. While the topic is interesting and even a bit redeeming for TC, the writing falls short of good journalism. I'm not sure mobile networks will ever go the way of the web startup. I think they had been there before, in their early days. If anything, we ought to hope the web startup doesn't go the way of mobile service providers...

spoondan 17y ago

I loathe AT&T. It mistreats employees and customers. It overcharges and delivers astonishingly poor service. It makes regular billing "mistakes". It willingly, almost gleefully, assists in the violation of its customers rights and privacy. It is a paragon of inefficiency. It fights against progress to keep its anachronistic business model relevant. It uses the legal system as a club. And it ensures that any actions brought against it can at best be Pyrrhic victories. In short, it is truly every bad thing Microsoft has ever been alleged to be and worse. I don't own an iPhone solely because I want less to do with AT&T than I do now.

Xichekolas 17y ago
This is also the company whose sales reps swear up and down, to this day, that they don't offer dry loop DSL "because there is no demand". Of course, if you know the magic phone number, you can call the dry loop division directly, and they are as helpful as can be. I asked one once why they were so hidden... she answered: politics.
- miles 17y ago
  And the magic phone number is...? 1-800-264-0002 But you might want to do a bit of research before signing up: Get AT&T Dry Loop/Naked DSL In 5 Minutes http://consumerist.com/342490/ http://consumerist.com/342490/ AT&T Dry Loop DSL Hard To Find, Get And Cancel http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Dry-Loop-DSL-Hard-To-Find-Get-And-Cancel-100952 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Dry-Loop-DSL-Hard-To-...
  - Xichekolas 17y ago
    Ah yeah I suppose I should have posted it! That is exactly the number I have. I was told it's for the region that includes Texas, but like you say, they can forward you on where you need to go, and the people at that number tend to actually be helpful.
- 4buot 17y ago
  i never had a problem getting stand-alone dsl...the phone numbers are secret because local carriers never really integrated into Bell Mobility, and Bell Mobility never really integrated into ATT...they are basically separate companies all named ATT to confuse you.

brk 17y ago

Wow, I just checked the voicemail on my iPhone and I had 12 (!) voicemails queued up with no indications that I had waiting messages. AT&T service has been horrible since I got my iPhone (~ 1 year). I kept a blackberry on Verizon, which is my primary "phone" (the iPhone has been more for email/web). However, I have a VoIP # as my primary phone that rings my desk, vzw phone and att phone all at once. Apparently a good number of calls ended up in my att mailbox, with no indications.

dattaway 17y ago

I "cancelled" my AT&T account a few months ago. Somehow the account is still open, but accumulating monthly negative charges (credit.) No script from their customer support can resolve this issue. Technical glitches can be fascinating and this company has no shortage in my experiences with them.

jf 17y ago
Complain to the FCC. http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm Just be sure to reply to every piece of mail that you get from the FCC and AT&T on time.

quizbiz 17y ago

How about one of us create a landing page with a bullet lists of AT&T complaints? I don't care enough but we could all link to the page at the bottom of our websites just with the word ATT[1] and soon enough when people search for AT&T's corporate page, they will find a list of complaints. People will take note and thus AT&T will be forced to take note as well. On top of that: - Update your twitter with your AT&T complaint and give it the hashtag #ATT. - Contact The Consumerist Blog, try to get their awareness (is anyone connected to them?). - Any other ideas? Let's start a movement. Stop complaining and start acting. I already did my part, I'm no longer an ATT customer. --- [1] Based on http://www.google.com/trends?q=AT%26T%2C+AT+and+T%2C+ATT http://www.google.com/trends?q=AT%26T%2C+AT+and+T%2C+ATT

jrockway 17y ago

What I get out of this is that it's best to avoid doing business with Apple's customers. (Nobody has ever filed a class-action lawsuit against Dell for using 6-bit LCDs instead of 8-bit LCDs.) They are much more demanding than the average customer -- Apple makes AT&T provide special exclusive features, and then their customers hold them to higher standards. "There isn't enough bandwidth." "Torrents download too slowly!" "Everything is too expensive." Not to sound like an AT&T fanboi, but the other providers are just as bad. The pricing is the same, you get locked in, and the bandwidth isn't even as good. (At least AT&T lets me use any GSM phone. Try that with Verizon.) The US just doesn't have the infrastructure to provide exceptional cell-phone service (like, say, Japan does; with millions of people in a very tiny space). With people constantly demanding more bandwidth for less money, I can't imagine there is much room in the budget to upgrade the 3G network in the middle of nowhere. Sorry, it's the reality of living so spread apart.

maukdaddy 17y ago
No this isn't about picky Apple fans. AT&T is truly shitty. I also switched from Verizon to AT&T for the iPhone and I loathe every minute I have to spend on AT&T's shitty network. Here in Chicago I drop every other call on average, and the ones that manage to stay up are usually full of garbled noise. No signal inside buildings that I used to get full strength on Verizon. Still no MMS even though their other phones have had the feature for ages. God forbid you want to use the network in a crowded venue - Solider Field, Wrigley, Lollapalooza, network is shit anytime there are more than 5000 people nearby. Simply unacceptable service in a city this size.
- jrockway 17y ago
  I live downtown and have AT&T. I've never had a problem. Maybe it's just the iPhone that sucks?
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
vaksel 17y ago

tptacek 17y ago

I'm not seeing Siegler acknowledge whether or not he had enabled TechCrunch's "safe" AT&T tethering hack, which is notorious for messing up voicemail. This despite multiple commenters asking him. (I think TC readers may have another nasty surprise waiting when AT&T finally gets to running 'awk' on the logfiles those tethering sessions land in.)

tsetse-fly 17y ago
Can anyone that hasn't enabled tethering confirm that their visual voicemail hasn't been working? There were a slew of people on the MacRumors forums that were tethering and didn't realize that their visual voicemail had been broken for days.
- physcab 17y ago
  If people ever called me I would be able to tell.
  - quizbiz 17y ago
    Give people a reason to need to call you.
- jsz0 17y ago
  Yep it's a well known side effect of some of the tethering hacks. This gentleman may have created his own problem and is now having a hissy over it.
- santry 17y ago
  FWIW, I've been using the tethering hack from http://help.benm.at http://help.benm.at on an iPhone 3GS and visual voicemail has been working just fine.
  - treyp 17y ago
    try setting your greeting

there 17y ago

so at&t can pay a ton of money to upgrade its network (which apparently isn't going to be that much faster) and then lose the exclusive contract with apple, in the process losing lots of customers and no longer gaining new customers when apple releases new iphones. or, it can not upgrade its network and just pay apple a much smaller amount to keep them locked into at&t, keeping all of its locked-in customers while increasing their prices, and continue to get new customers every time apple comes out with a new iphone. apple gets to sell more phones while pointing the finger at at&t for any network problems. i wonder which one they'll do...

stavrianos 17y ago
How do you figure that "and pay apple a much smaller amount to..." bit? If it's in Apple's best interests to leave, then they will. I certainly don't think that Apple will collude with AT&T to perpetuate shitty service.

jsz0 17y ago

Apple should seriously consider buying Sprint. When they first struck a deal with Cingular one of my first thoughts was they were picking a carrier that was within their reach to purchase down the road. Obviously AT&T had the same idea though. Given Apple's position in mobile electronics it would make a lot of sense to own their own data network. EVDO data in every device. iTunes Store over EVDO on every iPod. Extremely aggressive first party iPhone pricing on Sprint (while still selling a GSM model at a higher cost) They could really shake things up if they wanted to.

Xichekolas 17y ago
That is actually possible too, since Sprint's market cap is only $12.8b, and Apple's is $135b. A deal that is part cash, mostly Apple stock would probably go down well with current Sprint shareholders (the ones I know are fairly pessimistic about Sprint's future, but are holding in the hopes that the Pre helps, or it gets acquired for a premium). Sprint definitely has a history of horrible customer service, which maybe Apple could finally slay. I live in their home market (KC), so obviously coverage is great here, but not sure if it would be sufficient nationwide to be worth it to Apple. That said, Amazon apparently thinks coverage is sufficient for the Kindle. Definitely an interesting idea... who knows if Apple really wants to bother running the network though. It could take a while to raise network and customer service quality to meet Apple-customer expectations (ie. perfection), tarnishing Apple's hard-earned brand name along the way. Claiming all the successes (the device) and blaming all the problems (the network) on AT&T could be convenient.
derefr 17y ago
Apple would enjoy many benefits from buying a telecom company, but there's one factor that would almost certainly prevent it: anything bad the telecom did would then be blamed by the public (even if completely irrationally) on Apple. Apple makes most of their money from being the "sexy consumer electronics company", and no matter how you try to spin a telecom, you can't make it sexy. The only way Apple could successfully buy out a telecom would involve replacing the entire culture of the telecom with Apple's own dedication-to-snobby-perfection culture, which itself would involve replacing most of the employees and management with Apple's own. They'd have no one left to make computers!

charrington 17y ago

I totally agree that my new iPhone is basically an iPod touch. I get no AT&T signal at my house and marginal signal elsewhere. And it looks like I don't even get voicemails reliably. I should cancel my AT&T contract (there is a 30 day grace period) and get an iPod touch instead. There is no phone in the iPhone thanks to AT&T.