Here today, Gone today. T-Mobile withdraws a prepaid plan hours after sending press releases about it. (Image: TmoNews)

Imagine if your “unlimited” phone line came with a hidden limit — after 50 calls a month, each additional call would take at least five minutes to complete.

In the data world, speed throttles for “heavy users” deliver a similar frustrating experience.  That is what makes T-Mobile’s newly-announced “unlimited” use plans so ironic.  They are not truly unlimited at all.

T-Mobile’s “Even More” plan ($79.99) announced today for their contract/postpaid customers promises unlimited calls, texts, and data sessions with a very big asterisk — after using 2GB of data in a month, the company will throttle your data speed to near-dialup until your next billing cycle starts.

Providers routinely claim this doesn’t represent false advertising because you can still use data services on your phone, as long as you are willing to wait… a… very… long… time….

T-Mobile also managed to take back an announced plan for prepaid customers literally hours after seeding press releases to as many news agencies as possible.

In our copy, “Even More Plus” was supposed to deliver the same features as “Even More,” but at a much lower price — $59.99 per month.  It too was sold as “truly unlimited” for all of five hours before company officials yanked it, perhaps realizing their prepaid plan threw their postpaid/contract customers under the bus — charging them $20 more a month for same plan prepaid customers were to get for less.

TmoNews, home to a number of employees willing to share inside information about T-Mobile’s business, shared a copy of a notification message telling employees to avoid signing people up for the cheaper prepaid plan — it has been withdrawn.  But if customers insist, T-Mobile will agree to let you have the lower price, but only if you call by the end of today.

We noted with interest T-Mobile labels what they sell as “truly unlimited data” as the “$20 (2GB) feature” add-on in their own internal sales system.

Jeff, a Stop the Cap! reader grandfathered on an earlier T-Mobile data plan says it’s classic “bait and switch” advertising.

“My data plan offers 5GB of usage before the speed throttle kicks in, and now T-Mobile is advertising a 2GB data plan that they call ‘unlimited’,” Jeff notes. “A T-Mobile rep actually tried to tell me the new plan was better than the one I have now, which is the kind of new math that will make T-Mobile’s marketing department fit in real well with AT&T if this merger is approved.”

Verizon's Herd Mentality

Saturday will be the final day Verizon Wireless customers will be able to sign up for one-year service contracts and still get a discount on new equipment.

Effective April 17, customers will have just two choices for service — the ubiquitous two year contract with a steep early termination fee or month-to-month service priced artificially high to recover equipment subsidies off-contract customers do not receive.

Verizon claims the changes will “reduce consumer confusion,” which suggests customers couldn’t make up their minds between contracts for one year or two.  But the company claims most subscribers managed soon enough, usually choosing two year contracts to maximize discounts on equipment.

Some media outlets suggest the change is to discourage customers from abandoning Verizon Wireless for AT&T by holding them to longer two year contract terms.  But with AT&T losing customers to Verizon, that is an unlikely reason.

More likely is the company’s ongoing “simplification” of service plans, which has the unfortunate side effect of herding customers into plans that may not serve them well.  Verizon earlier did away with their popular “New Every Two” handset bonus plan which rewarded loyal customers renewing their contracts with additional $50 discounts.  The company also has cut back on other discounts on equipment, driving an increasing number of customers to third party retailers like Wirefly.

The one year service plan was established to let customers get some discount on wireless equipment without tying them down to a 24 month service commitment.  Since wireless providers build in cost recovery of the subsidies they “give” customers, you effectively pay back those discounts over two years by in the form of overpriced service plans.  Month to month “off-contract” customers do not get the benefit of any discounts for new equipment, but pay the same high prices for service everyone else does.

If your contract has recently expired, or you never had one, you might do better with Page Plus or Wal-Mart’s “Straight Talk” which both rely on Verizon’s network, but sell service at much lower prices, without a contract.

Rep. Avila with Marc Trathen, Time Warner Cable's top lobbyist (right) Photo by: Bob Sepe of Action Audits

Over the course of an hour this afternoon, North Carolina’s Senate Finance Committee discussed the implications of H.129, legislation proposed, written, and lobbied by Time Warner Cable and some of their phone friends across the state.

On hand was Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable), who tried to turn her competition-busting bill into an emotional epiphany about jobs and the benefits private providers bring to a state now ranked dead last in broadband.

Pass me a tissue.

Nobody doubts Ms. Avila is looking out for the interests of the state’s big cable and phone companies.  Unfortunately for her district, she isn’t looking out for the broadband interests of her constituents, forced to pay some of America’s highest prices for low end service.

As Avila pals around with lobbyists from Time Warner Cable and the state’s cable trade group (more lobbyists), consumers in places like Orange County in north-central North Carolina see themselves on broadband maps but find they cannot actually get service from any providers.

As the hearing progressed into two-minute statements from parties interested in the outcome, the disconnect between well-paid lobbyists and corporate front groups like Americans for Prosperity with elected officials and consumers on the ground surveying a bleak broadband landscape said a lot.

Cable companies and their lobbyist friends sought to portray community broadband projects as fiscal failures — one suggested that was a global reality, despite the fact many countries have embarked on nationwide broadband plans that directly involve government to help build infrastructure.  The global leader in broadband, South Korea, is a perfect example.  With collaboration between the government and the private sector, Korea will have 1 gigabit broadband service across much of the country within a few years.  That’s because South Korea does not believe broadband is simply a convenience, they see it as a social and economic necessity.

The other side sees it as a private moneymaker that can charge rapacious prices because it’s not an essential service.

Shining a bright light on this reality was Americans for Prosperity, who delivered their own speaker at today’s hearing.  As the group complained about government ‘overreach’ providing incentives in the 1930s for rural power and phone service, it quickly became apparent there are some in this debate willing to let rural Americans sit in darkness, without a phone line (much less broadband), to make a free market point: if private companies can’t or won’t deliver the service, you don’t deserve it and shouldn’t have it.

One wonders where this thinking will ultimately take us.  Will community gardens be opposed for taking vegetable profits away from private corporate farms?  Flea markets on public fairgrounds should be banned because they unfairly compete with eBay, Dollar Tree or a supermarket?  The irony is these “small government conservatives” are all for big government legislation to keep potential competitors at bay.  For them, broadband cannot be a locally-determined community project — just something you buy from a company that may or may not have an interest in serving you.

Just ask the gentleman from Orange County, who appeared as the final speaker.  He spent his two minutes complaining about faulty cable and phone company-provided broadband coverage maps that claim service where none exists.  After spending money on equipment, he learned CenturyLink had no interest in actually providing him with DSL.  In fact, when he asked both the phone and cable company when that might change, the impression he was left with was “never.”

Whether members of the state legislature understand the irony of CenturyLink spending a fortune making sure Orange County never delivers the broadband service the company won’t provide itself is something voters across the state will need to impress on them.

They should be told, in no uncertain terms, to oppose H.129 and leave community broadband alone in North Carolina.

Stephenson can use hit upsized alarm system to sleep better at night.

While AT&T is just weeks away from implementing Internet Overcharging schemes on its DSL and U-verse customers, the company’s CEO is raking in perks defended in the company’s 2011 proxy statement as necessary to be “robust and competitive enough to attract and retain key talent.”

Yet USA Today notes CEO Randall Stephenson, 50, doesn’t appear to be going anywhere — he has been with AT&T since the first term of the Reagan Administration.

In addition to more than $20.2 million in compensation, Stephenson’s perks and goodies amount to $417,000 in 2011.  Some of the highlights:

• Free personal use of the company jet ($180k)
• Paid life insurance premiums ($164k)
• A home security system ($31k)
• Car leases ($29k)
• Financial planning to help figure out what to do with all the cash ($14k)

What did your employer give you last year?

Another month, another colossal mistake from Frontier Communications.

As dead-tree-format telephone directories make their way to residents in western New York, customers noticed Rochester’s largest employer — the University of Rochester/Medical Center, was largely missing from the company’s Yellow Pages.

Oops.

During the production process for your 2011 FrontierPages Rochester Metro directory, multiple listings were inadvertently omitted or printed in error.  On behalf of FrontierPages and out telephone directory publisher, The Berry Company LLC, I’d like to sincerely apologize for this oversight and any confusion this may have caused.

Frontier printed and enclosed a supplement, University of Rochester Special Edition, to cover the lost listings.  It was the least they could do for the community’s biggest employer.  Ordinary consumers (like myself), don’t get similar treatment.  For the seventh year in a row, Frontier’s White Pages lists an old address we left in 2004.  This, despite not less than 15 reminders asking them to fix it.