The days of AT&T’s exclusive American distribution of Apple’s iPhone are dwindling, but the mobile phone provider wants to make sure you tough it out with AT&T even after the iPhone becomes available from Verizon Wireless.  If you don’t, AT&T will charge you $325 to break your two-year contract.

Effective June 1st, AT&T’s near-doubling of its early termination fee from $175 to $325 for smartphones is a shot across the bow of regulators already annoyed with cell company fees.  But aggravating the FCC and Congress may be worth it if it means locking millions of AT&T customers into new contracts expected to be signed with the release of the next generation iPhone due next month.  AT&T is making it even easier by “upgrading” many current iPhone accounts to qualify for the latest phone at the new customer price… with another two year service contract.

AT&T claims the new fee more fairly represents the cost of subsidizing increasingly popular smartphones, and the fee will decrease by $10 for every month you stay over the life of your contract.  Without the subsidy, customers would pay nearly $600 for a phone AT&T reduces in price to $199 with a two year contract.  But companies like AT&T earn back the subsidy and then some from the monthly service plan fees collected over the life of a two year contract.  Customers who bring their own unsubsidized phones to AT&T get no benefit from doing so — they pay the same artificially higher prices subsidized phone owners pay.

AT&T also announced it was slightly reducing the cancellation fee for its basic phones by $25 to $150, decreasing by $4 every month a customer remains with AT&T.  That’s not much of a concession considering many basic cell phone users are dumping contract cell phone service plans for prepaid service, where significant savings can be had.

“It is ironic indeed that news of AT&T’s early termination fee hike falls one day after the FCC’s report on the wireless industry highlighted the substantial obstacles to effective competition and the restricting effect this has had on consumer choice, service quality and price, said M. Chris Riley, Free Press policy counsel. “AT&T’s move to further price-gouge consumers is evidence of its market dominance and the need for real reform of wireless markets. The FCC needs to take action to spur competition, which will lead to lower prices and more choices for consumers who don’t wish to be bogged down in long-term contracts.”

Holding customers to two year contracts dramatically reduces subscriber churn — the practice of customers jumping from one phone carrier to another.  That means stable revenue and reduced marketing expenses aimed at signing up new customers.

Verizon Wireless already doubled their early termination fee from $175 to $350 last November.

On Friday, AT&T released an “open letter” to customers which was written as if to suggest the increased fees benefited consumers:

Fayette County, Pennsylvania

Brazen copper thieves have taken to ripping phone cable right off the poles in an effort to cash in on resurgent copper pricing, usually to feed expensive drug habits like the ones discussed when you visit this web-site.

In southwestern Pennsylvania, repeated thefts have gotten so bad Verizon announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the prosecution of those involved.

The epidemic of copper theft in Fayette County has reached an all-time-high as Verizon finds large sections of working cable stripped right from telephone poles.  When the cables come down, phone and broadband service goes out.

“These thefts are incomprehensible because they put people’s lives in danger and can cost thousands of dollars to repair,” said Michael Wagner, director of construction for Verizon Pennsylvania.  “We will not tolerate these deliberate and malicious acts against our telephone network and our customers.”

As a result of these crimes, hundreds of Verizon local phone customers have unnecessarily experienced telephone service delays – up to several days in some cases – and endured risks to their personal safety.

“They’re putting people who rely on phone service out of service,” Verizon spokesman Richard Young explained. “They’re putting customers who need service in danger in the event of an emergency to call an ambulance, to call the fire department. This person is putting the lives of people at risk.”

Verizon has suffered nine losses across the county in just a month:

• April 22 in Uniontown – A 360-foot section of copper cable was cut and stolen.
• April 25 in Farmington – A 600-foot section of copper cable was cut and stolen.
• April 26 in White House – Nearly 400 feet of copper cable and a fiber-optic cable were cut and stolen.
• May 5 in White House – A 290-foot section of a copper cable and a fiber-optic cable were cut and stolen.
• May 11 in Shoaf – A 300-foot section of cable was cut and stolen.
• May 11 in Smithfield – A 230-foot section of cable was cut and stolen.
• May 12 in Haydentown – More than 1,200 feet of copper cable and a fiber-optic cable were cut and stolen.
• May 14 in McClellandtown – Two sections of copper cable totaling 500 feet were cut and stolen.
• May 17 in Gates – A 350-foot section of copper cable was cut and stolen.

Southwestern Pennsylvania is by no means alone in confronting copper theft.  Across the country, thieves are stealing copper wiring from every utility.  Thieves also steal copper pipes from homes, and in a new trend, are stripping copper coils from air conditioning units.

The reason for the interest in copper is its ever-increasing value.  Copper prices exploded a few years ago, and have trended upwards ever since.

Copper price trends

In January 2009, copper was bringing “just over a dollar a pound,” according to Lee Swann, a security contractor who works with Georgia Transmission Corporation. Today — “depending on what type of copper it is” — the metal is bringing $2.80-$3.10 per pound — an all-time high for many recyclers, even as prices have recently declined on the spot market.

At those prices, the incentives are there for theft.  Recovering and recycling copper has been a growth business for years, and many companies aggressively advertise “top dollar paid for recovered metals” promotions in newspapers and circulars.

Some recycling facilities are vigilant for suspicious truckloads of “recovered” copper while others are less so.  But as law enforcement confronts the growing trend in copper theft and utility companies begin offering rewards to stop it, many facilities are now regularly cooperating with local police.

Most of the proceeds from stolen copper likely go towards illegal drugs, particularly methamphetamine, believes the Coalition Against Cable Theft, a Washington-based advocacy group funded by home builders, contractors, and utility companies who are usually the victims of copper theft.  The Coalition wants strengthened laws to deter recyclers from accepting and paying for questionable sources of recovered copper.

Perhaps copper theft would be just one more reason why providers should dump copper wire for fiber optic networks, but many of the thieves are stupid — indiscriminately cutting and tearing down cables of all kinds, only later to find they were stuck with fiber optic cable, which most immediately discard at the base of poles, deemed worthless.

Anyone with information about the Pennsylvania copper capers can contact Verizon Security at 412-633-4902 or the Pennsylvania State Police at 724-439-7111.  In other areas, if you discover suspicious activity, call 911.

The money and utility service you save may be your own.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KDKA Pittsburgh WALA Mobile Copper Thieves 5-10.flv[/flv]

KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh covered an earlier copper theft of Verizon wiring and WALA in Mobile ran a very similar story about copper thieves plaguing AT&T.  (4 minutes)

Free Press is raising money to buy advertising to remind residents in cities where Comcast has a lock on cable service that it now wants to acquire NBC-Universal.

Comcast won The Consumerist’s 2010 “Worst Company in America” award for its poor service, beating Ticketmaster, AIG and Countrywide Home Loans.  Now that’s a tough neighborhood.

Free Press wants to remind consumers if things are this bad now, imagine what they’ll be like when America’s largest cable company also owns a major U.S. television network and studio.

For its troubles, Comcast gets a small sculpture that Consumerist describes as “the Golden Poo” and the dubious honor of being mentioned in stories like this, notes The Washington Post.

Other contenders for the award included Bank of America and Cash4Gold.  They should have probably also included Chase Bank, which has been bloodsucking Americans since the days of the railroad robber barons.

Severe thunderstorms have knocked out several utilities for residents in parts of Alabama tonight including PCL Cable, broadband, and telephone service.  A large number of PCL customers in Decatur and Athens have lost service tonight.

Customers trying to get answers from PCL Cable are getting the usual result when major service outages strike: endless busy signals.

PCL Cable was acquired by Knology Cable last November.  For the record, Knology was answering their customer support lines with no hold time this evening in Huntsville.

A power outage in northern Madison County caused by the thunderstorms moving through the area tonight knocked out power for 600 customers, but service has since been restored.

This empty water tower in Madison, Wis. caught fire Friday as workers began painting preparations, disrupting wireless communications services on the city's west side for months. (Photo: WMTV Madison)

A water tower fire on Madison’s west side has wiped out WiMAX broadband service for at least 150 fixed wireless broadband customers, leaving them cut off for so long, provider TDS Telecom is canceling their service and assisting customers in switching providers.

A Madison utility manager said workers Friday were preparing to paint the 100,000-gallon tower in the 2700 block of Prairie Road when insulation around communications cables caught fire.  Smoke was visible from the empty water tower for miles, and several nearby homes had to be evacuated because of fears of a potential collapse.

City engineers have since deemed the tower safe, but the real impact will be several months of interrupted broadband and cell service from several area providers who depended on the tower as an antenna site.  The tower was particularly crucial to TDS Telecom, which depended on its strategic location to deliver its wireless broadband service in western Madison.  It will take several months to restore service.

“Based on our discussions with the City, we anticipate it could take a very long time to repair the damaged tower,” states DeAnne Boegli, TDS National Public Relations Manager. “Since this is the only viable tower location TDS can use to serve these homes, and because temporary solutions are not available, our customer’s best option is to select another facilities-based communications provider.”

TDS will assist all 147 impacted customers in changing their service without penalty and remove the equipment from customer homes at their request and convenience. The company is also providing the customers a month’s service credit.

“Unfortunately, this accident has left us with no reliable or timely restoration options. TDS understands communications services are critical to our customers and we want to get them transitioned as quickly as possible, even though it means they must select another provider,” said Boegli.

Affected cell phone companies are trying to establish temporary cell tower sites to improve service in the area while repairs get underway.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMTV Madison Water Tower Fire Wipes Out WiMAX 5-14-10.flv[/flv]

WMTV-TV in Madison broke into regular programming to deliver a special report on the fire.  We’ve also included some raw video of the fire.  (11 minutes)