The FCC delayed WLNP several times. Every time the mandate came due all the carriers cried and cried about how tragic and costly it would be and filed for extensions. So for two or three years there was a stay of execution. Sometime in 2001 I started telling their representatives that I was going to leave their god forsaken service and take my number with me. This obviously didn’t phase them, nor did they believe me, “I’m sorry, that’s just not possible.” In retrospect this is humorous because I was most certainly talking to a $10/hr employee. Having run a contact center I can tell you 2 things about that person with absolute certainty.
1. They don’t read FCC filings
2. They don’t give a shit if I leave
So the rantings of the crazy woman fell on deaf ears. The day always comes when we all have it stuck to us and that glorious day came for AT&T when the top 100 MSAs were forced to comply by the FCC. On a side note, there’s one other thing I can tell you about Telcos with absolute certainty – you don’t want to be the first customer to get anything new or do anything new. It won’t work - I promise. There are zero exceptions to this rule. So I sat back and watched all the carriers screw up people’s ports. Phone numbers went flying wildly into the black abyss of NPAC or some other telco backoffice. So I waited until the coast was clear and laughed like a lunatic as I ported out to T Mobile. As a parting gift, the bastards over at AT&T gave me a final F U when they billed me for a whole month when I only spent a few hours into the bill cycle on their network. I was really happy when someone was pissed enough to whack them with a class action law suit for exactly that. I signed up.
So to shorten an already long, and probably boring, bitch session I eventually ended up with Cingular. So we all know what happened there. So here I am full circle - back with AT&T Wireless. But it should be ok right? Cingular bought them, not the other way around.
Fast forward – November 2007. I win an iPhone and give it to my husband. We activate it and those bastards force me to re-up the contract. Then they remove the corporate discount on our account and force me to add a data plan. And when I called, GOOD LORD - you would have thought that it was 1999 again. I swear it was the same woman who laughed at me 8 years ago.
I honestly started out very calm and tried to be nice. That lasted about 30 seconds until this nitwit said she didn’t know anything about a contract renewal on an iPhone. For the love of god woman - more than a million have been sold in the last few months. You would think they would at least be able to answer basic questions. Not a chance. So they blamed this on Apple and transferred me to their tech support. This was going no where fast. Then Apple got all uppity and blamed AT&T.
As consumers you probably understand that there are two reasons wireless companies force you to renew your contract – they’ve either subsidized your phone from the manufacturer or they force you into it when you want a newer/better rate plan. This was neither of those circumstances but what I came to realize is that the retail phone is subsidized by Apple. They’re banking on the fact that you will activate the handset on AT&T’s network. And when you do, they mandate the data plan and then AT&T kicks back a percentage MRC or per phone cut to Apple. That my friends is why they try so gosh darn hard to prevent you from unlocking the phones. They want the kick back. So despite all their “We’re Apple, we’re crunchy, we’re a bunch of do-gooder happy people”, they are fundamentally just as evil as AT&T.
Ain’t nothing in life free. In fact it’s worth about $800. That’s the price difference between the locked and unlocked devices at the current exchange rate overseas. So my loss of choice is worth about $1 per day to Apple. So if you do the math on that and assume that Apple is getting at least that much back from AT&T, and there are at least 1M phones out there, that's like 400M annually just from that initial run of 1M phones (who knows how many were added during the holidays). So while that $1 day won't buy me a coffee (despite what Sally Struthers may suggest to the contrary - what kind of coffee is she drinking anyway?), it buys them a whole lotta coffee. Bastards.
Happy Holidays...I hope everyone gets a stinking iPhone under the tree.
My husband reminded me that he didn't understand half of this post because I did that thing where I talk in acronyms. I've updated the post with few links to helpful sites. And Vanessa, if you want, we can get on a bridge later on and talk about it.
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