AT&T’s DSL customers are promised high speed service that can never be delivered thanks to speed caps and dishonest marketing.  That is the premise of a lawsuit filed against AT&T way back in 2005 in St. Louis County Circuit Court.  After years of languishing, the lawsuit has recently been certified a “class action,” which means it could eventually expose AT&T to thousands of settlements with DSL customers all the way back to 2000 in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

An attorney with Gray, Ritter & Graham in St. Louis, which is handling the case, accused AT&T of making speed claims for its DSL service it knew it could never actually deliver to consumers.  The suit describes several instances where customers’ modems were artificially locked at speeds far lower than promised in company advertising, often making it impossible to reach even the minimum promised speeds.

“They were being charged for these high speeds that could not be delivered,” said Don Downing, an attorney with the firm.

AT&T admits it does cap DSL speeds, but calls the process “optimization.”  That usually refers to the process of identifying the maximum supportable speed a telephone line can handle with minimal errors, and then configuring the modem not to exceed that speed.  As DSL speeds will decrease the further away a customer lives from the phone company’s facilities, typically advertised speeds are often achieved only by a select few who live very close to the phone company’s exchange office.

The fine print in AT&T's DSL service terms and conditions

AT&T maintains records of every customer capped, and at what rate.  The legal firm handling the case considers that a potential road map of identifying impacted consumers.

AT&T has notified the court it may seek to appeal the class certification, but otherwise does not comment on pending litigation.

Many customers have not been impressed with AT&T’s DSL service.

“We recently left AT&T because our DSL, which worked fine, suddenly stopped working completely and when it was brought back up, it was almost as slow as dial-up. The service guy told me that was as fast as we would ever get with DSL, which was odd because two weeks earlier the speed had been fine,” Anne writes.  “Needless to say, we’ve switched to Charter (Cable).”

Another AT&T customer noted getting out of bad AT&T DSL service can be difficult, unless you are willing to pay.

Dano notes, “When you sign up, there’s a one year contract and termination fee on the lowest speed you’d have to deal with if you close your account early. They will get you either way.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who often adopts anti-consumer positions on telecommunications policy, has written a so-called “killer amendment” that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing proposed Net Neutrality rules.

Her amendment, informally proposed Monday as part of a House Interior Appropriations spending measure (H.R. 2996) states:

Purpose: To prohibit the FCC from expending any funds in fiscal year 2010 to implement any Internet neutrality or network management principles, or to promulgate any rules relating to such principles.

Hutchison’s amendment has several Republican co-sponsors: John Ensign (R-Nevada), Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), David Vitter (R-Louisiana), Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina),  and John Thune, (R-South Dakota).

Hutchison released a statement explaining the amendment: “I am deeply concerned by the direction the FCC appears to be heading. We must tread lightly when it comes to new regulations. The case has simply not been made for what amounts to a significant regulatory intervention into a vibrant marketplace. These new regulatory mandates and restrictions could stifle investment incentives.”

Ensign said Net Neutrality would punish a telecommunications industry at a time when it’s managing through an economic downturn.

“Any industry that is able to thrive should be allowed to do so without meddlesome government interference that could stifle innovation,” he said.

Brownback also has a history opposing the consumer interests of his constituents.  Back in May, he penned a letter to a Stop the Cap! reader in Kansas openly favoring Internet Overcharging schemes.

Public interest groups are calling on the public to express their displeasure with the Republican senators for their opposition to Net Neutrality.

One possible explanation for the sudden, strong interest by Hutchison and other Republicans to oppose Net Neutrality can be found in their respective bank accounts.  Hutchison accepted $67,300 in campaign contributions just from AT&T, her ninth largest contributor.

Combined, AT&T donated more than $400,000 among the six Republicans opposing Net Neutrality, and one of those senators, John Thune, used to work for a DC lobbying firm that was hired by Comcast.

The details were compiled by Sam Gustin, a reporter for DailyFinance:

Over the course of his career, Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, has received $220,914 from “telephone utilities,” including some $83,130 from AT&T, his second-largest donor, in the form of employee and lobbyist donations to his campaign and political-action committees. Sprint Nextel has given Brownback $35,550 over the course of his career.

Two of the co-sponsors of the bill, Sen. David Vitter of Lousiana and Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who have both seen their reputations tarnished after sex scandals, have been on the receiving end of AT&T’s largesse. AT&T and predecessor BellSouth have donated $82,050 to Vitter’s campaigns and political-action committees. And over the last four years, AT&T has donated some $61,250 to Ensign’s campaign and political-action committees. Verizon-related entities donated $46,600 to Ensign during that period.

During that time, AT&T has donated $63,750 to the campaign and political-action committees of Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican. AT&T is DeMint’s second-largest donor.

Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican, has not received significant donations from the telecom industry since his 2006 defeat of Sen. Tom Daschle, then Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. But from 2003 to 2005, Thune served as a senior policy adviser to the D.C. lobbying firm of Arent, Fox, when its client Comcast, the largest cable company in the U.S., paid some $40,000 in fees.

[Update: Yesterday evening, Washington Post reporter Cecilia Kang reported that the Republicans were, at least for now, backing off on pushing for their amendment:

“While we are still generally opposed to net neutrality regulations, we have decided to hold off on the amendment because [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski] approached us and we are beginning a dialogue,” said a staff member on the committee.

Hill watchers said the amendment itself represented standard operating procedure when attempting to block regulatory agency policy decisions, but characterized the Hutchison amendment’s chances of passage as remote.  Hutchison and the Republicans are in the minority in the Senate.]

An electrical fire at Time Warner Cable’s headquarters in El Paso, Texas knocked out cable television, Internet, and telephone services for customers across El Paso Tuesday.

Company officials claimed the fire, which did only minor damage, interrupted service for several hours, but some customers reported phone service and on-demand programming interruptions extending into Wednesday.  Although Time Warner claimed the problem affected only “a few” subscribers, KFOX-TV reported the outage affected the entire city of El Paso.

Ironically, although the company’s customer service center was closed Wednesday, the bill payment office remained open for business.

Service has since been restored across the city.

KFOX-TV, El Paso’s local Fox affiliate, has the most in-depth coverage of Time Warner Cable issues in southwest Texas:

[flv width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KFOX El Paso Time Warner Services Restored Customers Ask For Credit – News Story 8-12-09.flv[/flv]

Warning – Loud Audio!

Time Warner Cable will only issue credits for service interruptions to those who specifically request them.  Residents of El Paso can call 1-800-222-5355 to request credit.

KTSM-TV also reported that some Internet customers may have also been affected with extended outages, even after cable television service was restored:

[flv width=”382″ height=”288″]http://phillipdampier.com/video/KTSM?from=%40 El Paso El Paso Cable Outage Blamed On Power Surge 8-12-09.flv[/flv]

El Paso and Time Warner Cable have had an occasionally contentious history with one another, extending back a year ago when service problems plagued area residents.

Repeated media attention, and the involvement of state and local officials became necessary.  But the ability for the state to deal with poorly performing cable companies is limited — Texas is one of the states that issues statewide cable franchises, tying the hands of local officials.  Additionally, very little state regulation of telecommunications services in Texas means customers often have limited recourse to deal with bad service, beyond simply trying to find an alternative provider, if available.

A history of past troubles can be found in several news video reports below the break.

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