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AT&T to Leave Residential Business
Herve writes "Just got it from a press release on the AT&T website: 'AT&T will no longer be competing for residential local and standalone long distance customers. The company stressed that existing residential customers will continue to receive the quality service they expect from AT&T; however, the company will no longer be investing to acquire new customers in this segment.'"
Not exactly. Twenty years ago, ATT was THE phone company, encompassing what Verizon, SBC, Qwest, etc., are today. When they were split up, all those companies could only do local phone service, and ATT was the long distance company.
Now everything's been all jumbled up, and everybody can do everything. So this incarnation of ATT is more like MCI or Sprint than it is Qwest or Verizon.
Well, according to the press release, AT&T will actively pursue VoIP and other emerging technologies for both residential and commerical customers...so it appears to be a switch to a data only company.
A very, VERY big part of it was losing the biggest single phone contract in the world, the United States Government FTS (Federal Telephone Service), to MCI a few years ago.
It is the maintenance of this contract that has kept MCI afloat despite its woes and which, coupled with AT&T's rapid expansion (TCI, etc.), has led to AT&T's dramatic fall in the residential marketplace.
I would also guess that the extreme growth in cellphone and DSL use has hurt AT&T, since more and more people are using those technologies instead of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) for home use.
AT&T felt that current regulations for the Baby Bells favored the Baby Bells in areas which they held monopolies. At the same time Baby Bells are being allowed to offer long distance, AT&T feels the rates Baby Bells charge them put them at a competitive disadvantage.
If what AT&T says is true, I would get out of the business too.
The number of US landline phones declined by 5 million since 2000, while 7.5 million people overall have made the switch to exclusive cellphone use in the US.
Some Stats
good political satire
AT&T offers perfectly reasonable long distance plans, as long as you actually pick one instead of getting the default. I use AT&T. I'm still on a plan for several years ago, and I get 5 cent weekend minutes, 9 cent weekday, no monthly fee. I haven't seen any other of the major brands that match that. (10-10-etc and calling cards certainly might.)
I have a $40/month plan that allows me unlimited calls to the UK (24/7). I've not yet found anyone else that has such a plan...
A monthly charge AND you pay five cents per minute? That sounds crazy compared to calling cards. You can walk into just about any store and pick up AT&T calling cards that are ridiculously cheap, like under two cents per minute. No monthly charge either. Considering all that, it baffles me as to why people still get long distance service considering how mind-bogglingly cheap calling cards are. Is there something I'm missing? Is there a reason people continue to get long distance service? Is there some major advantage over calling cards (besides having to enter a number every time you make a call)?
I just canceled a long term agreement to use AT&T for my long distance carrier, and went to the Freedom plan from Verizon.
Why?
1. The about 30 minutes a month we were using cost as much or more in the average month.
2. I pay my bills online. 3 months ago I scheduled their payment to go out 7 days ahead of the due date, a standard practice.
The check got there a couple of days past the due date and some asshole turned it over to a collection agency, who was of course out of state. They called me at 8:55 pm 3 different days to rag and otherwise irritate me into paying a measely $47 bill that I already had a bank statement showing it had been paid, and AT&T themselves told me that it had been paid when I called them. The collectors people were the most obnoxious people I've tangled with on the phone in a decade or more, and I used up most of a 15 minute monolog's worth of swear words discussing their geneology with them. It took over 2 months to get that collector off my back and that forever turned any inclination I had for AT&T's service off forever.
AT&T was a fine, long term business, till some jerks managed to get themselves jobs in accounts receivable. AT&T should either prepare to sink in the long term view, or do some weeding in accounts receivable. Either way, they are going to do it without me, who has been a customer of theirs for 69 years.
Cheers, Gene
Everybody seems to be missing the reason for this.
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While their service sucked AND they were annoying us with switch calls the real culprit was Bush and the FCC.
http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26319-1.htm
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&ta
They got rid of the regulations about unbundling the local copper so the local carrier can charge AT&T whatever they want.
Expect others to leave that market soon as well.
"You heard it here first: the voice business is dead. Repeat: it's not even a commodity; it's doomed. The telcos know it, too." [Wired 3.07]
It panned out to this - just 10 years later.
As it happened, my wife's friend took a turn for the worse and we spent 4 to six hours on the phone over the course of a few days talking over whatever it is she needed to "express" (women...). My wife used the 1-800-CALL-ATT number, telling them to bill the LD to our home phone. Imagine my shock and horror when the AT&T bill arrived singing a tune of almost $700. The heartless bastards had no mercy... any and all pleading for mercy ended "Well... that's what you owe us... pay up or else." It took me 3 months to get them to knock a couple hundred off just to close the matter out, but it was their deceptive advertising that caused the problem in the forst place.
May AT&T's corporate soul, if it still has one, rot in corporate hell.
Actually, I switched to AT&T for local and LD a few months ago. Their prices were competitve (better than the gouging I was getting from MCI). And -- I've seen no-one mention this -- there are the frequent-flier miles. Maybe I'll feel differently when I need to deal with their customer service, but it's been smooth sailing so far...
Interesting that you should say that. This article is from yesterday.