Recent Headlines
October 2, 2009
Tweet Be Sure to Read Part One: Astroturf Overload — Broadband for America = One Giant Industry Front Group for an important introduction to what this super-sized industry front group is all about. Members of Broadband for America Red: A company or group actively engaging in anti-consumer lobbying, opposes Net Neutrality, supports Internet Overcharging, belongs […]
October 2, 2009
Tweet Astroturf: One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is “Astroturf lobbying” – creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s […]
September 27, 2009
Tweet Hong Kong remains bullish on broadband. Despite the economic downturn, City Telecom continues to invest millions in constructing one of Hong Kong’s largest fiber optic broadband networks, providing fiber to the home connections to residents. City Telecom’s HK Broadband service relies on an all-fiber optic network, and has been dubbed “the Verizon FiOS of […]
September 23, 2009
Tweet BendBroadband, a small provider serving central Oregon, breathlessly announced the imminent launch of new higher speed broadband service for its customers after completing an upgrade to DOCSIS 3. Along with the launch announcement came a new logo of a sprinting dog the company attaches its new tagline to: “We’re the local dog. We better […]
September 23, 2009
Tweet Stop the Cap! reader Rick has been educating me about some of the new-found aggression by Shaw Communications, one of western Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, in expanding its business reach across Canada. Woe to those who get in the way. Novus Entertainment is already familiar with this story. As Stop the Cap! reported previously, […]
September 22, 2009
Tweet The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail. [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's] proposal – to codify and enforce […]
September 21, 2009
Tweet In March 2000, two cable magnates sat down for the cable industry equivalent of My Dinner With Andre. Fine wine, beautiful table linens, an exquisite meal, and a Monopoly board with pieces swapped back and forth representing hundreds of thousands of Canadian consumers. Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw drew a line on the western […]
September 11, 2009
Tweet Just like FairPoint Communications, the Towering Inferno of phone companies haunting New England, Frontier Communications is making a whole lot of promises to state regulators and consumers, if they’ll only support the deal to transfer ownership of phone service from Verizon to them. This time, Frontier is issuing a self-serving press release touting their […]
September 7, 2009
Tweet I see it took all of five minutes for George Ou and his friends at Digital Society to be swayed by the tunnel vision myopia of last week’s latest effort to justify Internet Overcharging schemes. Until recently, I’ve always rationalized my distain for smaller usage caps by ignoring the fact that I’m being subsidized […]
September 1, 2009
Tweet In 2007, we took our first major trip away from western New York in 20 years and spent two weeks an hour away from Calgary, Alberta. After two weeks in Kananaskis Country, Banff, Calgary, and other spots all over southern Alberta, we came away with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good […]
August 31, 2009
Tweet A federal appeals court in Washington has struck down, for a second time, a rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the size of the nation’s largest cable operators to 30% of the nation’s pay television marketplace, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The 30% rule, designed to keep no single company from […]
August 27, 2009
Tweet Less than half of Americans surveyed by PC Magazine report they are very satisfied with the broadband speed delivered by their Internet service provider. PC Magazine released a comprehensive study this month on speed, provider satisfaction, and consumer opinions about the state of broadband in their community. The publisher sampled more than 17,000 participants, […]
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AT&T can afford 2 billion a year for advertising but “can’t afford” not to ration usage
I nominate this clip for the best anti AT$T ad of 2012!!!
I am very happy that someone well known has called out this pathetic company for what they are doing. Good job Shepard.
ATT. STOLE 262.00. THAT I HAD on my gophone account because i missed ONE DAY OF adding the NEXT 25.00 DOLLARS TO KEEP THE MONEY TO ROLLOVER.
THEY STOLE 262.00 DOLLARS RIGHT OUT OF MY WALLET.
IM ONLY ON THIS to keep in touch with my family.
ATT. YOUR NOTHING BUT A NASTY RIP.O F F. NASTY RIP.OFF.
ID REALLY LIKE YOU TO RE.IMBURSE MY MONEY ATT. ARE YOU THAT MUCH OF A DEVIL. GOD HELP YOU. THANK GOD, THAT JUDGE DID not LET YOU TAKE OVER T.VIRGIN MOBILE,AND THE OTHER TWO SMALL COMPANIES. you SAID YOU NEEDED.
PUT MY MONEY BACK INTO MY ACCT.
BBB IN MY LOCAL CITY HAS BEEN INFORMED. AND THE FCC. TO MENTION TWO THAT WOULD ACTUALLY LISTEN TO MY COMPLAINT………..
THANKS TO YOU MR.JUDGE FOR doing the right thing
NOT GIVING INTO ATT BEING A BULLY. NOTHING BUT A BULLY
This is a familiar problem. Although AT&T will send you two e-mail reminders, they often end up in spam folders and unless you circle your calendar, it is all-too-common for consumers to lose their money on AT&T’s prepaid service. That’s why a lot of customers “top up” $100 which keeps service active for a full year. But if you miss your renewal date, whatever is left of the $100 goes into AT&T’s wallet, too.
They wait several weeks later before shutting off your prepaid phone.
I have no experience fighting to win this money back, but the BBB is a good start. Also consider calling AT&T executive customer service at 1-800-791-6661 and tell them your story, and let us know what happens.
In the meantime, you might be interested to know T-Mobile has prepaid service that also features a $100 deal for a full year of minutes, but at the end of the year, a top-up in ANY amount will extend your service for another full year. That means you won’t accumulate super-sized prepaid balances just to rest easy knowing your phone will stay activated when you need it.
Cricket has a prepaid service that requires a top up of just $1 every three months to stay active. If you happen to lose your balance and phone number, it’s no big deal. They will reactivate your phone and assign you a new number with a top up of any amount (even $1) for no service charge.
Sprint’s Virgin Mobile may also be an option for you, but they require a top up of $15 every few months to keep the phone active, and you have to watch your online bill like a hawk for third party charges fraudulently added to your account.
It’s not just AT&T folks. Even land based services are seeing caps. Data costs ISPs about 1 penny per Gigabyte. So usage concerns are wholely unwarranted. Crowded connectivity, sure I buy into that one. But how much of the US has crowding issues with towers? 5% maybe? Why make the other 95% suffer due to poor location choices by the remaining 5%? I also see this as completely anti-competitive. ISPs have seen that there are new services available via the internet in TV and VOIP telephone. They want to stop this competition, so they introduce limits to keep you from using them. This has GOT TO STOP!!! Not just from AT&T but from every internet provider in the US. Caps are stupid and unneeded. They stem 100% from greed only.
I am here because Verizon is disallowing “streaming” now that has always been allowed on my “Unlimited” data plan. VERIZON is a big greeedy company to which I pay almost $300 per month for TV Fios and Mobile services. What a PIG when that amount of money can easily pay for all that with a happy customer. They take away channels and add other limitations to these services all the while they threaten big penalties and fees if I decide to go to another plan privider. I can’t change my plan when the add a new limitation, but verizon changes my plan almost monthly in the NAME of “Providing better service” to the customers. BEWARE we need to work through our Congress and Federal Communications Commission to correct this ugly situation. Google Verizon to see all the complaints from the public about these things. If we ban together around a Website and FaceBook page, maybe we can get some correction to these silly issues that cheat us out of promises made by these greedy big corporations!!!
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