Although more than 30 million Americans have experienced getting bill shocked with a cell phone bill loaded with overlimit fees and penalties, a wireless industry group says 19 out of 20 of these customers are economically better off getting those high bills, and any plan to notify customers in advance when their usage limits are reached would “harm innovation, limit consumer choice, and impair the potential for competitive differentiation.”

These incredible conclusions come in a filing from the Wireless Communications Association International, an industry group funded by AT&T, Sprint, Clearwire, and Time Warner Cable.

The WCAI just released a new white paper claiming Americans facing Internet Overcharging from usage-capped wireless data plans are actually saving money when carriers impose overlimit fees.  Their reasoning for this new math?  You might overpay for a usage plan that delivers a higher usage allowance than you need.

"And to think they actually believed us when we said Internet Overcharging saved people money!"

The wireless industry is heavily lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to stop the agency from imposing new rules to deal with the bill shock problem.  The FCC favors an advance warning system, which would force providers to notify customers by e-mail or text message when they near their usage allowance.  Letting customers know when they are about to pay enormous penalty usage rates before they are reflected on a future bill could save Americans millions annually.

The WCAI-funded study says consumers don’t need the agency’s help, going as far as to claim the majority of Americans are already well aware they are exceeding their plan limits, and are better off paying short-term penalties.

“The FCC is weighing new regulations that it says will eliminate so-called ‘bill shock,’ but this analysis makes plain that consumers don’t need regulators’ help,” WCAI President Fred Campbell said. “If you give them the right information, they know how to pick the best deal.”

But critics charge providers fighting this provision want to hide the most basic information of all — when consumers are on the verge of running up huge bills.

“The FCC’s effort on bill shock is long overdue in a wireless environment where today’s heavy user is tomorrow’s average user, and where the wireless Web is more and more important to commerce and to society,” Free Press Policy Counsel M. Chris Riley said. “It is vital that consumers are empowered with the information and the tools needed to make decisions about their own wireless usage so they can avoid outrageous charges.”

The WCAI white paper suggests that if providers are forced to issue advance warnings, companies may have to raise rates to compensate.  The paper’s author suggests consumers would find that worse than just paying the bills with overlimit fees:

The Nielsen Study indicates that many consumers incurring overages do so willfully and repeatedly. Their behavior suggests it is unlikely that usage notifications or usage controls would change their behavior because they are either indifferent to the overage charges or have determined that the occasional overage charge is more economical for them than choosing a more expensive plan. Notwithstanding that these overage-incurring consumers may not want or need additional notifications or controls, the adoption of the FCC‘s regulatory proposals would impose on all consumers the financial burden of ―protecting this one small group.

The WCAI dismisses the huge number of complaints that arrive at the FCC each year over this issue as simply “opinions” from consumers, not nearly as credible as their own analysis of actual customer bills.

The paper even argues with the definition of ” bill shock,” suggesting that the nearly 7 percent of wireless customers who blow past their voice allowances only face an average penalty of around $18.  That is “surprising or inconvenient; but it is unlikely to be shocking.”

Bill Shock

The WCAI study admits the dollar amounts for data-usage bill shock can be considerably higher, sometimes $100 or more.  The charges occur more frequently, too — impacting nearly 18 percent of customers.  But the group dismisses it as a rare occurrence anyway and that carriers will issue credits for astronomical surprise bills.  Besides, the paper concludes, when it was written most consumers were enrolled in increasingly-rare “unlimited use” plans.  Since the raw data was collected largely before AT&T abandoned its flat rate data pricing in 2010, statistics regarding bill shock for AT&T’s new limited use plans were not available.  The white paper inaccurately dismisses that major rate change, claiming it “had no impact on the data analyzed.”  That leaves readers believing the rate changes made no difference.

But the group’s logic completely derails when it concludes there are “consumer benefits to overages.”  Namely, providers “simplified” rate plans to reduce choice which was causing “customer confusion.”  The paper concludes “there is substantial evidence that consumers make deliberate choices to incur overages rather than upgrading to a more expensive monthly rate plan, and that they overwhelmingly benefit from such choices.”

The white paper ignores several important factors:

1. The diminishing number of unlimited access plans which give consumers a way to avoid overlimit fees, especially for data;
2. Carriers themselves arbitrarily set the arbitrary rules for the playing field – calling plan allowances, data allowances, limits, overlimit fees and penalties, and roaming rates;
3. The study ignores the record number of consumers complaining about surprising bills and the true economic impact providing simple text message or e-mailed notifications would have, and doesn’t give any reason why a consumer can’t simply shut off services once limits are reached, to prevent excess charges.

The white paper notes that 736,000 Americans annually are getting surprisingly high bills.  Assuming they are an average of $20 higher than anticipated, that represents nearly $15 million dollars in extra revenue for carriers — ample reason to hire dollar-a-holler groups to produce nonsensical reports that conclude a system to notify consumers they are about to be one of those 736,000 customers is actually bad for them and their wallets.

The FCC’s Consumer Task Force recommends these strategies to avoid bill shock:

•    Understand your calling pattern for making voice calls, and ask your carrier for a plan that would be best for your kind of use.
•    If you are an infrequent phone user, consider a pre-paid plan. Because you “pre-pay” for all your minutes, these plans make it impossible to go over your set limit.
•    Understand what your roaming charges are and where you will incur them.
•    Understand your options for data and text plans.
•    If you are going to use your mobile phone outside the U.S. for voice, email, and other services, make certain to find out beforehand what charges may apply. (Visit Wireless World Travel for more information about using a wireless phone in other countries.)
•    Ask how your carrier can help you avoid bill shock – with phone or text alerts, by letting you monitor your account online, or by giving you other information.
•    If you have tried to resolve a billing issue with your carrier and can not reach an acceptable resolution, complain to the FCC. You can call our Consumer Center, toll-free, at 1-888-CALL FCC (1-888-225-5322), or file a complaint here.

To learn more, read the FCC’s White Paper on Bill Shock.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/FCC Bill Shock.flv[/flv]

The Federal Communications Commission discusses the problem of “bill shock.”  (1 minute)

And then there were three?

Deutsche Telekom has held talks about a possible merger with Sprint in exchange for a major stake in the combined entity, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The German phone company, owner of T-Mobile, America’s fourth-largest cell phone company, has been pounded by analysts after revealing its earnings for 2011 were likely to be below expectations.  T-Mobile, DT’s American brand, has faced harsh criticism for its stagnant performance, declining earnings, and bleak future.

Michael Kovacocy, director of Equity Evolution Securities, told CNBC T-Mobile is essentially in last place among America’s major national carriers and is going to stay there so long as it targets value-conscious customers who care more about a lower bill than a robust network.

“We think in the long term, perhaps, their position is unsustainable,” Kovacocy said.

Deutsche Telekom, the German phone company, does considerably better in Europe than in the United States.

The analyst predicts T-Mobile will always be relegated to #4 status in an American market dominated by Verizon and AT&T, with Sprint behind in third place.  T-Mobile is further back than that and has stagnated.  Unless they make radical changes — changes Kovacocy feels will be destructive to shareholder value — such as price cuts or major infrastructure improvements, T-Mobile will remain an also-ran.

“They have the wrong customers, the wrong network, and we think their spectrum is very difficult because it’s uncompetitive versus some of the spectrum AT&T and Verizon has,” Kovacocy said.

T-Mobile saw the departure of at least 150,000 customers during the last quarter — most heading for other carriers.

Talks between the two companies have reportedly been difficult, however, over Sprint’s willingness to meet DT’s price.  Sprint has seen losses erode the value of its competitor, and may want to pay less than the $25 billion estimated value of T-Mobile’s network and operations.

Sprint has experience trying to integrate customers from two incompatible networks together, with less than spectacular results.

Another problem:  the two networks rely on different and incompatible standards — CDMA for Sprint and GSM for T-Mobile.  Sprint experienced major integration problems once before, when it acquired Nextel from Craig McCaw in 2005.  Nextel’s iDEN network enabled the popular “push-to-talk” feature beloved by construction workers and contractors, but made integrating the Nextel family into Sprint a hellish nightmare.  After initially promising to phase out the iDEN network by 2009, Sprint recently announced it had pushed back the date of decommissioning to 2013.

A buyout of T-Mobile could leave Sprint serving customers on three different networks — its own customers, those still on Nextel’s network, and T-Mobile.

Although predictions are already being made the merger would pass muster in Washington, public policy groups concerned about the ongoing loss of competition in the wireless marketplace will have a major example to show this practice at work.  Americans continue to face some of the most expensive cell phone service in the world, and T-Mobile’s aggressive pricing helped keep other carriers from raising prices much further.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Deutsche Telekom May Sell T-Mobile USA Unit to Sprint 3-8-11.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg News covers the possible sale of T-Mobile to Sprint.  (6 minutes)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Sell Deutsche Telekom 2-25-11.flv[/flv]

Back on Feb. 25, CNBC  interviewed one of several analysts who were upset with T-Mobile’s likely performance in 2011.  (4 minutes)

Suddenlink, one of America’s smaller cable operators, has been undergoing a transformation as it tries to meet expectations of today’s cable subscribers and match whatever phone company competition comes their way.  While some of the upgrades are customer-friendly, others pose ominous signs for the future — particularly with respect to Internet Overcharging broadband customers.

Let’s explore:

The Good — New Broadband Speeds, New DVR, New Investments

Suddenlink cuts the ribbon on its new store in El Dorado. (Courtesy: Suddenlink FYI)

In parts of Suddenlink’s service area, particularly in Texas, the company is moving most of its cable service to a digital platform.  This transition is designed to open up additional space for more HD channels, keep up with broadband demands, and open the door for additional on-demand programming.

In Nacogdoches, Suddenlink announced it was adopting an all-digital TV lineup.  Starting this week, the company is offering subscribers free digital adapters — also known as “DigitaLinks,” to enable continued viewing on analog television sets that do not have a set top box or digital tuning capability.  Every subscriber purchasing more than the broadcast basic package (that only includes local stations and a handful of cable networks) will either need a digital tuner-ready television, a set top box, or a DigitaLink device to continue watching.

What is good about this transition is that Suddenlink is not charging customers a monthly fee for the adapters, either now or in the future.  That contrasts with other cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable that have handed customers a set top box or a digital adapter they will begin charging for after a year or two.

Suddenlink expects to invest nearly $120 million this year in Texas, and by the end of the year will have invested nearly a half-billion dollars in the state since 2006.

Texas is extremely important to Suddenlink.  The third largest cable company in Texas serves about 450,000 households and approximately 27,000 business customers in Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, Bryan-College Station, Midland, San Angelo, Georgetown, Tyler, Victoria, Conroe, Kingwood and Nacogdoches.

Suddenlink's New TiVo DVR

The company has also lit new fiber connections to handle data communications, primarily for business customers, and is upgrading its broadband service to fully support DOCSIS 3, which will deliver faster speeds and less congested service.

Customers in the state are also among the first to get access to a new and improved DVR box built on a TiVo software platform.  Suddenlink’s “Premiere DVR” service ($17/mo) is now available in Midland, Floydada, Plainview, Amarillo, Canyon, and Tulia.

The Bad — “Suddenlink Residential Internet Service is for Entertainment” Purposes Only

The Humboldt County, Calif. Journal's "Seven-o-heaven" comic strip commented on Suddenlink's problems. (Click the image to see the entire strip.)

Do you take your broadband service seriously, or is it simply another entertainment option in your home?  If you answered the latter, this story may not be so surprising.

In Humboldt County, Calif., broadband users started noticing their favorite web pages stopped updating on a regular basis.  At one point, a blogger in McKinleyville noticed he couldn’t manage to post comments on his own website.  But things got much worse when several web pages started reaching customers with other users’ names (and occasionally e-mail addresses) already filled in on login screens and comment forms.

It seems Suddenlink started to cache web content in the far northern coastal county of California, meaning the first customer to visit a particular website triggered Suddenlink’s local servers to store a copy of the page, so that future customers headed to the same website received the locally-stored copy, not the actual live page.

But the caching software went haywire.

Web visitors began to receive mobile versions of web sites even though they were using home computers at the time.  Some were asked if they wanted to download a copy of a web page instead of viewing it.  And many others discovered websites were customized for earlier visitors.

While the caching problem was irritating, the privacy breaches Suddenlink enabled were disturbing, as was the initial total lack of response from Suddenlink officials when the problem first started in late January.

The Journal finally reached a representative who provided this explanation:

Suddenlink Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications Pete Abel knew that a cache system had recently been installed in Humboldt County, but was unaware of the particular problems reported by users. After speaking with the Journal and other Suddenlink employees, though, he released a statement explaining what appeared to have happened.

According to the release, the cache system was installed in Humboldt County on Thursday, Jan. 27 — the very day that users began experiencing problems — and was intended as an interim solution to relatively low Internet speeds in Humboldt County. The system, it said, was able to cache only unsecure websites — those which, unlike almost all reputable banking or commerce systems — do not encrypt communications. But the company eventually discovered the problems that its customers had been reporting and, having fruitlessly worked with its vendor to find a solution, turned the system off on Monday.

“The good news is that secure Web site pages will not have been cached,” Abel said in a follow-up call to the Journal. “And I have been assured 100 ways from Sunday that never would have happened.”

Andrew Jones, who runs a blog with his Suddenlink broadband account, tried to opt out of the web caching and received an interesting response, in writing, from a Suddenlink representative.  He was told he could not opt out of cached web pages with a residential account because, “the residential service is for entertainment only.”

Jones was told he would have to upgrade to a business account to escape the cache.

“If a small local radio station intermittently went off air for multiple days, the radio host would be apologizing and explaining the situation,” Jones wrote the Journal. “If a large utility company experienced sporadic power outages, people could hear a recording on a toll-free number to learn the cause and about ongoing repairs. What does an Internet provider do when web access becomes spotty and begins serving customers old copies of web pages? The company gets back to you in a couple days and suggests you pay more if you don’t like its recently degraded services.”

The Ugly — Suddenlink’s New Usage Meter Suggests 43GB is An Appropriate Amount of Usage for Standard Internet, 87GB is Plenty for Their $60 Premium Package

Although Suddenlink has not formally adopted an Internet Overcharging scheme of usage caps or metered billing, the company is sending automated e-mail messages to customers who exceed what they call “typical monthly usage for customers in your package.”  The e-mail tells customers they may be infected with a virus or someone else could be using your connection without your permission.  Boo!  For the uninitiated, this kind of message can bring fear that their computer has been invaded, either with malicious malware or the neighbor next door.

Customers have also received letters in the mail from the company telling them to check out their new “usage meter.”  Several have been sharing how much they’ve racked up in usage during the month on Broadband Reports.  One customer managed 243GB while another looking at the company’s super premium 107/5Mbps package managed a whopping 786GB.

Although the wording of the message has strenuously avoided telling customers they are wrong for this amount of usage, the implication is clear to many: they are counting your gigabytes and identifying the outliers.  One customer called it Suddenlink’s “You’re actually using your connection, and we really wish you wouldn’t”-message.

“No one with an ounce of sense would pay for a 20/3Mbps connection and only use 78 GB in a month. Let’s hope they’re just making cute suggestions, not easing us into a cap, because that just won’t fly,” wrote one West Virginia customer.

Another in Georgetown, Texas did the math and made it clear 43GB better not turn out to be a cap because it means customers can barely use the service they are paying for.

“It’s way too low. I got 10Mbps [service] because of price/value and not because I use less than 43GB,” he writes. “[Even] if I downloaded at 1.25MB/s for 30 days straight (1.25 * 2592000 seconds) I could [still] grab 3.164TB.”

Clyde (Courtesy: KUSH Radio/Donna Judd)

Meanwhile, some controversy over the quality of Suddenlink’s service during the upgrade process had some residents in Cushing, Okla., up in arms at a recent city meeting.  Lorene Clyde complained Suddenlink’s “new and improved” service is worse than ever.

“I’m tired of paying for a service I’m not getting,” Clyde said.  “And the Suddenlink commercials – they are like rubbing salt in a wound.”

KUSH-AM reporters were on hand to cover the event, noting Clyde was not the only one complaining.  The radio station noted that “the buzz around town echoes her sentiments – from the ‘mildly irritated’ to the ‘downright mad’ – citizens have been complaining.  Not only have they been complaining to Suddenlink – as difficult as that may be (the call center is in Tyler, Texas) – but to city leaders.”

What Clyde and others may not have realized is that Suddenlink officials were in attendance and were able to apologize for the problems, but a growing consensus among consumers and city leaders is that a broad-based refund for the poor service was warranted.

Commissioner Joe Manning said while he appreciated the promise to figure out the problem, it wasn’t good enough to just apologize and promise – that subscribers’ bills should be adjusted to reflect the poor service.

Commissioners Carey Seigle and Tommy Johnson agreed with Manning.  Seigle pointed out it would be “good P.R.” to give some sort of rebate across the board to subscribers while Johnson complained that the original “upgrade” was only going to take a few weeks and now 8 months later – things are not better, but worse, noted the radio station.

Suddenlink officials on hand said they did not have that kind of authority, but continued to promise things are going to get better.  “I pledge to you,” one said, “We will find it [the problem] and fix it.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KJTV Lubbock Borrowing Wi-Fi 2-7-11.flv[/flv]

KJTV-TV in Lubbock, Texas talked with Suddenlink about the growing trend of neighbors “borrowing” neighbors’ unsecured Wi-Fi networks.  Other than the accidental recommendation that consumers should “invest in Internet spyware” to keep your computer safe, the report does a fair job of shining a light on a practice that could have financial consequences if the provider implements an Internet Overcharging scheme.  (2 minutes)

With all of the tumultuous events in the Middle East, the debate over whether to allow Al Jazeera’s English language service on America’s cable systems has begun again, with commentators on the right accusing the channel of being the next best thing to Osama bin Laden anchoring the six o’clock news, and some on the left demanding carriage just to make a point.  But the real question left unanswered is, “how much is this channel going to cost cable subscribers?”

Al Jazeera English managing director Al Ansteys has been negotiating with Comcast and Time Warner Cable, America’s largest cable operators, to find out — and ultimately win carriage of the 24 hour English-language news network on both cable systems.

Arriving at Comcast headquarters in Philadelphia with 13,000 signed petitions for Al Jazeera English, Ansteys said the sheer number of requests should extinguish any doubt that Americans want better coverage of events in the Middle East from the network.

Nearly 8,000 Time Warner Cable subscribers signed petitions and another 1,000 Cablevision subscribers echoed the sentiment.

Time Warner Cable already has experience carrying international news outlets.

The company recently expanded the reach of Russia Today (RT), a 24-hour news network in English based in Moscow and funded by the Russian government.  The channel is the equivalent of an external television service to compliment The Voice of Russia (formerly Radio Moscow), a station familiar to every shortwave radio listener.  Although the Russian government goes out of its way to declare the RT’s journalistic independence, the firewall between the Kremlin and channel’s newsroom has been tissue-thin at times.  Reporters have learned how to cover certain stories, and which ones to avoid.  RT’s news and current affairs programming compliment the foreign policy priorities of Kremlin.

RT’s coverage of the Middle East is occasionally anti-American to the point of stridency.  Some reports on the channel infer the United States government has thrown its former allies under the bus, others claim everything Washington does in the region has to be reviewed by Jerusalem before passing muster.  Message: the Obama Administration’s policies are out of touch, unreliable, and incoherent.  You can get much the same view from Sean Hannity any evening on Fox News, but RT is no right-wing paradise.  Liberal American talk radio host Thom Hartmann has a regular show on RT — The Big Picture.  The news channel also devotes a considerable amount of time talking to fringe commentators across the ideological spectrum, and even has spent time with 9/11 conspiracy theorists.  When that is finished, it’s time for the weather in Minsk.

Russia Today

The presentation is light years ahead of the shortwave service, whose studios still have all the acoustical qualities of a subway station restroom.  Posh British accents and modern graphics make the channel blend in nicely with other international news operations like France 24, CBC Newsworld, BBC World, or CNN International.

But the bigger question is why I, and other Time Warner customers are getting another channel few asked to receive.  Quietly “soft-launched” in western New York on a digital channel in the 100’s, RT’s sudden presence wasn’t likely to draw much attention — and it hasn’t, — all part of its larger plan to expand cable carriage nationwide. If the channel (and others) succeed, it will be able to directly reach American audiences with a Russian point of view, without an American gatekeeper.

As of last month, the effort expanded on radio as well.  New York City area radio listeners can now receive The Voice of Russia 24 hours a day on their AM radio dial, thanks to an agreement with WNSW 1430-AM in Newark, N.J., which has effectively leased out the station to Moscow.

This is the dream many international broadcasters have had for years — reaching an American audience that routinely ignores international voices.  During the Cold War, literally millions of watts were thrown back and forth as western stations fought eastern bloc jamming to deliver the Voice of America and Radio Liberty.  The Soviet Union and their satellites carpeted the shortwave bands with English language programming from stations as diverse as Radio Moscow, Radio Tirana, Albania and the Voice of Mongolia.  But it was a battle few Americans paid attention to, content to listen to local AM and FM stations.

As for Al Jazeera English — it is a credible news operation measured against today’s definition of “cable news” and delivers top rate coverage of the Arab Spring — the ongoing transformation of governments across the region.  If anything, their coverage revels in the new democratic possibilities open to the region. It’s not the BBC, but then again what passes for cable news in the United States these days isn’t either.

Al Jazeera makes the assumption you are already familiar with the region, and risks talking over the heads of those who are not, but wild claims that the network is some propaganda arm of Osama bin Laden or other assorted Islamic extremist groups just don’t match the programming.  In fact, one is much more likely to see anti-American rhetoric on RT than on Al Jazeera English, which is completely preoccupied with events closer to the Arab world.

The tone is far more Fareed Zakaria than Glenn Beck.  If you don’t know who those people are, you aren’t going to watch the channel anyway.  And there is the larger point — do we need more channels on the budget-busting cable dial?

Should Al Jazeera be allowed on America’s cable and satellite lineups?  Of course, especially if there is room for channels like RT or CCTV9, the Beijing-based 24-hour English language network from the People’s Republic of China, both seen on many Time Warner cable systems.  But they’d better come free of charge or sold a-la-carte if they are not.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTXF Philadelphia Comcast Al Jazeera Debate 2-24-11.flv[/flv]

WTXF-TV in Philadelphia aired this screamfest debate over Al Jazeera English in the United States that completely misses an important point: who is going to pay for it? (6 minutes)

Meet Daniel and Kate Methot, proud owners of $5000+ in Bell data charges the company cannot explain.

A couple from Merritt, B.C. has received bills from Bell for more than $5,000 in data usage, even after the skyrocketing bills made the family so frightened of their phone, they turned it off.

This is the story of Daniel and Kate Methot, who purchased a smartphone from Bell in October of last year.  When the first bill arrived, it contained more than $1,000 in data charges.

“My wife looked at me and I thought ‘Oh boy, what did I do that I didn’t know that I had done? I am in trouble’,” Daniel told CBC News.

When Internet Overcharging of this magnitude occurs, most people first blame themselves, assuming they did something wrong.  The Methot family figured they downloaded a malfunctioning or data hungry app or left something running on the phone.

“We never thought we would be billed for something we weren’t using. That was sort of a new concept for us,” Daniel said, but the family still sought guidance from Bell on how the charges could get that high.

“They really couldn’t give us an answer,” Kate said.

The family deleted everything they could find on their new Samsung Galaxy phone in hopes of stopping the surprise charges.

But when the December bill arrived, the couple was horrified to discover their new bill was more than $3,500 — almost entirely for data usage that literally cost Bell pennies to provide.  In fact, the phone company managed to bill the couple for 30 hours of usage during one 24-hour day, a clear warning sign there was a severe billing problem at work here.

But when it comes to protesting charges with Bell, the Methots discovered customers are guilty until proved innocent.

“I felt like I was being treated like a criminal — like we were trying to essentially steal from them,” Daniel said. “When you call in to argue a bill, that’s what they do. They tell you to pay — and don’t ask questions.”

Kate got a stern lecture from Bell telling her to quit watching videos on her phone all day long.

Of course, the couple denied doing any such thing.  In fact, by the time January arrived, both Daniel and Kate became afraid of even going near their phone, much less using it.  The couple routinely shuts the phone off when they are not actually using it for calls, but still the data charges kept coming — more than $5,200 to date.

CBC News asked Bell several times for a response to the Methot’s complaint. While refusing an in-depth interview on the topic, Bell told CBC News it cannot yet explain what is happening with the account.

That hardly inspires confidence for the Methot family.  Despite Bell being unable to explain the charges, they continue to insist on being paid for at least some of them.

The couple even hired a lawyer for $400 to send a letter to Bell demanding better answers or the couple would not continue to pay the unexplained charges.

In that case, Bell would simply turn their account over to collections, and potentially ruin their credit rating.

Bell’s theories about the stratospheric bills include:

• They are running up the bill themselves and now trying to run away from the charges they incurred;
• They are using the phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot feature, inadvertently allowing the entire neighborhood to share their connection;
• They are watching Netflix all day and into the night;
• They ran across the border into the United States and are incurring roaming charges;
• They are tethering their computer to the phone and that consumes massive amounts of data.

The one explanation Bell hasn’t imagined is that their billing system is completely fouled up and their usage meter cannot be trusted.  One might imagine Bell could actually determine where the phone is being used, to dismiss the roaming theory.  Plus Daniel reports he is incurring data charges even when the phone is completely powered off.

Finally, Bell admitted they were responsible, credited the account for more than $3,000 of the charges, and the Methot family thought their long nightmare was over.

Only it isn’t.

Merritt, B.C.

Days later, though, they received a bill with $1,204 in new charges.

“It was just a temporary relief and then the stress is back again,” Kate said.

“At that point I wasn’t interested in being a Bell customer anymore,” Daniel added.

On top of that, Bell has reneged on their apology, now claiming they were not responsible for the faulty charges after all.  The Methot family can pay their $1,200 phone bill with cash, check, money order or credit card.  And if they plan to leave, they better be ready to cough up the early termination fee as well — another several hundred dollars.

Isolated incident?  Don’t bet on it.

“These customers are not alone,” Howard Maker, the head of the federal Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services told CBC News. “Unfortunately, Canadian telecom consumers do suffer from many billing errors from their providers.”

Maker said his office received more than 1,900 complaints about wireless providers last year, and 40 per cent of them were about overcharging.

With Bell insisting customers can trust their usage meter — the one that generates $5,000 in data charges for one family alone — Canadians should prepare themselves for the bills that will follow. With no oversight agency able to monitor the accuracy of the meter, Bell customers will just have to take their word for it.

[flv width=”640″ height=”388″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC News Couple’s huge bills unexplained by Bell 3-1-11.flv[/flv]

CBC News talks with the Methot family about their Internet Overcharging experience.  (5 minutes)