Slashdot Mirror
Wireless Phone Carriers Held To (Texas) State Law
profet writes "The Dallas Court of Appeals found that wireless carriers must abide by state consumer protection and contract laws or face liability in state courts. A story on PR Newswire talks about AT&T's practice of 'misrepresenting' (read lying), and overbooking its network."
"You know, we're already providing a useful service to the citizens of Texas - it's not like we should have to obey the laws too!'
Seriously, though - weren't there some estimates that by 2010 major corporations would be in a position to blackmail the government to the point of having martial rights and extratorritarial soverignty?
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
I could understand the problem with 'misrepresenting', but all mobile carriers, as well as ISP, always overbooking user subscriptions to maximize the usage. How could they draw a line there?
And I've very rarely found the system to be unavailable. Someone else mentioned a "2%" maximum unavailability rate; I'd have to say fewer than 1% of my calls weren't able to go through. 'Course, this is only in my little corner of the state; YMMV.
This is for AT&T's wireless service. Long distance, now that's another story... I had to drop them for another company after they bumped me to a higher rate...
you've never worked for at&t or one of its indentured servent out-source pits o' hell (but ask me how i really feel about them sometime).
like most major corporations, at&t outsources the majority of its customer service and tech support jobs to (in their words) concentrate on the core business, but which actually translates into "pay the shlubs slave wages whilst we quietly destroy the company through shotty business practices and poor management.
Case in point: The Rockport Tx market for then Southwestern Bell (now Cingular) had the town in their back pocket for their analog service. 3 years ago Verizon came in and put a tower up in nearby Aransas Pass and issued a mandate ordering SWBell to reduce their output in the Analog service. Since then service went to hell and then some. NOW comes along the name change to Cingular Wireless, only it just gets worse. Their buyout of several cellular systems inspire management to attempt to MERGE the databases without proper testing. That knocked out over 65% of the digital service for the Rockport market. Their claim is that the phones were defective.. Bullshit! There were people coming in from other Cingular regions and their phones were not able to ringout, but able to receive calls! So you tell me what happened here... Heh! The store I worked for became a former Cingular dealer and settled for selling Sprint PCS, in which did very well.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.