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Despite cost savings expected to run into the billions from the combination of AT&T U-verse and satellite TV provider DirecTV, AT&T isn’t sharing any of their savings with you and has announced a nationwide rate hike for early 2016.
For the latest round of price increases, AT&T is focusing on its U-verse TV and telephone services, blaming “increased programming costs” and “service delivery expenses.”
All customers not on a promotional rate contract will be affected, starting with billing statements issued after Jan. 28, 2016.
AT&T’s Voice 1000 plan is increasing to $30 a month and the Voice 250 plan will rise by $2, to $27 per month;- U-family and U-family All-In tiers increase $2 a month;
- U100, U200, U200 All-In, U200 Latino and U200 Latino All-In up $3 a month;
- U300, U300 All-In, U300 Latino, U300 Latino All-In, U400, U450, U450 All-In, U450 Latino and U450 Latino All-In rise $4 a month;
- Non DVR-TV receivers increase $1 per month;
- Regulatory Video Cost Recovery Surcharge: up 1¢ per month;
- Broadcast TV Surcharge: increasing $1 per month (except 46¢ in Detroit, Biloxi, Miss., and Wilmington, N.C.)
AT&T claims its services remain a good value at the higher price because the company’s TV Everywhere service now allows mobile/tablet customers access to more than 270 live channels while inside the home and more than 205 channels when on the go.
Customers appear not to be impressed. AT&T admitted 92,000 U-verse customers left AT&T for good during the last quarter and analysts expect further customer losses during this quarter as AT&T refocuses its value conscious customers on cheap and easy to install DirecTV instead of U-verse, which can be costly to get up and running.
CEO Randall Stephenson also warned customers should expect a harder line on pricing due to the company’s ‘new focus on profitability.’ AT&T has cut back on promotional pricing and is especially reluctant to extend deals to customers with a “propensity to churn.” That means AT&T does not want to extend lower pricing to customers threatening to leave who are unwilling to pay the regular price after their deal ends. The company noted price sensitive customers often bounce back and forth between providers just to secure new customer pricing.
The nerve of these customers wanting value for their money. When will these peasants learn that their money belongs to the death star?
An interesting note, AT&T are already pushing DirecTV instead of Uverse TV. I’m moving within a couple of weeks. A few days ago, entering the address of the new house into AT&T’s site brought up the option to buy a bundle of Uverse TV and Internet. As of yesterday, the site brings up the option to buy a bundle of DirecTV and Uverse Internet, with the Uverse TV options buried behind a series of “More packages” links.
“Cheap and Easy to Install DirecTV”? That’s a laugh. DirecTV will be cheap for 12 months and when that ends, your $29.99 a month bill will go up to $70+ a month. On top of that, you’ll be under contract for 24 months, want to get out of that contract early? you’ll have to pay an ETF and it isn’t cheap.
This is true, and yet I’d still consider DirecTV the best TV provider that I ever had.
Granted, their billing and customer service department is utterly dreadful, at times.