[ale] [rant] I dislike "we only support winblows/OS X"AT&T internet

[Jeff Lightner]

Funny idea that AT&T "used to" care for "customers".  Back in the days
when it was a monopoly it didn't give a damn about customers because it
knew they didn't have other choices.

When I first moved to Houston years ago and established phone service
the local AT&T (strong)arm there made me put down a hefty deposit to be
allowed to make long distance.  Despite that before I even got my first
bill they called me up and told me that I needed to come and pay them
another deposit "right away" to cover double the amount of calls I'd
made to that point or they would disconnect my phone service that day.
Back in those days MCI was just starting out and you could only get LD
between big cities and unfortunately the one I'd come from wasn't big
enough. 

Luckily AT&T wasn't smart enough to know how good they had it so tried
to force MCI out of business and ended up getting broken up in an
anti-trust action after making the attempt.


-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
Michael B. Trausch
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 11:02 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] [rant] I dislike "we only support winblows/OS X"AT&T
internet

On Sat, 2008-03-01 at 22:43 -0500, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> Remember (if you are old enough to do so) the days of rock-solid
> reliable dialtone, five 9s?  Those days are gone.  Today's mobile
> phone companies (even those that are divisions of legacy telco
> carriers) know that if your phone works 95% of the time you will keep
> on paying.  That same logic is everywhere today, unfortunately for
> those in the 5 to 10 percent.

While I am not old enough to consciously remember what "good business"
was like, I have heard many stories of it.  I used to be a contractor to
AT&T in Alpharetta and heard many stories from people that had worked
there for a very long time telling me what things were like back in the
days when the company cared for both its employees and its customers.

It floors me that businesses have gone away from that concept.  It seems
clear to me that happy employees are productive employees and that happy
customers are willing customers.

However, I can tell you this:  The first fast and reasonable option that
presents itself to me that gets me away from Comcast in this immediate
area will have me fleeing to it as if my life depended on it.  Hell, if
I had the cash flow for it, I'd drag a set of T1s here just to get away
from them.  At least those can be used for just about any lawful
purpose, as I understand it, and if you spend enough they actually
"care" about you in a "oh we really don't want to lose that person that
pays an exorbitant fee to us each month" type of way.

	--- Mike

-- 
Michael B. Trausch                                   mike at trausch.us
home: 404-592-5746, 1                                 www.trausch.us
cell: 678-522-7934                       im: mike at trausch.us, jabber
Ubuntu Unofficial Backports Project:    http://backports.trausch.us/
----------------------------------
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you.
----------------------------------