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iPhone Bill a Whopping 52 Pages Long
PoliTech writes "iPhone bills are surprisingly large - 'Xbox Large', according to Ars technica: 'AT&T's iPhone bills are quite impressive in their own right. We're starting to get bills for the iPhone here at Ars, and while many of us have had smartphones for some time, we've never seen a bill like this. One of our bills is a whopping 52 pages long, and my own bill is 34 pages long. They're printed on both sides, too. What gives? The AT&T bill itemizes your data usage whenever you surf the Internet via EDGE, even if you're signed up for the unlimited data plan. AT&T also goes into an incredible amount of detail to tell you; well, almost nothing. For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as Data Transfer. The Type of file? Data. My total charge? $0.00. This mind-numbing detail goes on for 52 double-sided pages (for 104 printed pages!) with absolutely no variance except the size of the files.' You would think that a data company would have a more efficient billing process."
They were never able to get my bill correct for the 6 months I was with them after the initial AT&T merger. I left, went with TMobile for a year, and I am now back as an iPhone customer. I probably should review my bill.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/31/att_iphone_in tl_roam.html
Every month for the last six years, I have received a bill from XO communications for -$846.52, for a line that I canceled which had a billing error on the closing statement. I thought about calling them to try to get it fixed, but I figured that would probably take several hours of navigating phone trees and getting transferred from one retarded support rep to the next. Easier to just toss them.
I also got a refund check one time from PacBell for $0.01.
Now I am extremely happy that I went with their paperless billing option when I signed up for my iPhone.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
Somewhere down inside the quagmire that is AT&T's billing system, you'll probably still find an active tariff for leasing crank-style (think "Lassie") phones to customers. It has never been updated to intelligently handle more recent uses of their communications systems, and heaven forbid you should ever ask one of their people to explain a charge or how to lower the cost of your "service". That's one of several reasons I refuse to do business with them anymore.
They're preparing you for the day when they start data usage charges. "Unlimited usage" might be just an introductory rate plan. The telcos want to charge you for every download, and clearly they have the billing system in place to do it. You think they went to all the trouble to implement that when it doesn't generate revenue?
and you can have it removed by a single request to customer service. What a non-issue. Of course, if detailed billing wasn't offered by default, I'm sure there would be people whining that they're not being told where their charges are coming from.
Maybe this is a subtle way of saying: yes, we keep track of everything. Your world delivered [to the NSA].
The thing that I find even more disturbing than the $3000 bill is this: "I'm a web developer as part of my career and I couldn't even tell you how many KB the average web page is, no less a text message to my son, an e-mail with a photo to my mother, or a quick check of Google Maps." I can only assume that optimization isn't in this guy's vocabulary.
This guy's the limit!
This level of detail is not only "mind-numbing" in is inconvenience, but should alarm anyone concerned with the privacy of their communications. AT&T has a dismal track record with respect to warrantless governemnt data mining, and it disconcerting that they relay such detailed monitoring for their billing records (even when there is no charge). You can be assured that such records are conveniently feeding the data mining engines at the NSA.
AT&T hates trees.
It'll make it easier to slip in a $1 charge here and a 25 cent charge there. Few people read those bills and making them longer and filled with useless data like this will make it harder to find the signal in the noise.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Not sure why it's anything to do with *Apple* at all.
There are apparently some ancient (ie regarding POTS calls) laws about what has to be reported to the customer. AT&T is just obeying the law. If you think it's a stupid law (hint: for datacomms, it is), then sign up for e-billing and save a forest or two...
Who knows, in some other reality, AT&T might even pass on some savings to you if you do... No postage, no paper costs...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I don't know, that doesn't seem too unreasonable. I mean, I could take a pretty good guess at how big the web pages I write are and how big the images I use are, but just by glancing at any random webpage I don't think my guess would be pretty accurate. Likewise I think it's difficult to guess what would be an "average" size for a webpage. There are just too many variables involved.
Maybe those were the copies that were supposed to be sent to the NSA...
Web pages are getting ridiculously heavy, thanks to high-speed internet and people feeling that they don't have to optimize - "it takes away from the experience."
The same can be said for server loads - page generation is going backwards in terms of cpu usage. I've seen php scripts that end up #including almost 100 other scripts ON EVERY PAGE LOAD!!!
This is insane.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
But the charge you $15/page for the bill!
Beep beep.
Yep, sign up for Charter FREE UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE and get an itemized bill of all your long distance and zone calls. I think this is so the marketing drones can pull the run out from under you at some future date and point out HOW MUCH FREE SERVICE you have been getting. It appears that companies just want to keep their options open in-case they decide to eliminate or charge MORE for the FREE UNLIMITED SERVICE.
Now that we know this, we should have a contest and see who can generate the largest bill.
I'm surprised they haven't added a "paper and/or postage surcharge" for a 50+ page bill. I know it requires extra postage, but can one even mail a 50 page document using a standard envelope?
Considering how much the environmental activists pressured Apple to use "greener" manufacturing and packaging, I'm a little surprised they're not taking Apple & the carrier to task for this remarkable waste of paper. I would think there's as much material in one 50-page bill as the iPhone packaging! One or two bills therefore completely undoes any of the efforts to make the product packaging more efficient. Penny wise, pound foolish, as they say.
You see, ATT is preparing a new content delivery system, so soon your bill may include:
Date - Transfer Method - Type
08/07/2007 - Data Transfer - Data
08/07/2007 - Tubes - An Internets
08/08/2007 - Sneakernet - l33t w4r3zzz
08/08/2007 - Quantum Entanglement - Welcome Basket of Oranges from The New ATT!
and so on. So lay off, they're planning for a much wider array of services no doubt, and what seems contentless now will soon have great meaning!
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
its $0.005 per kb - half a cent per kilobit,or 4 cents per kilobyte (more like 5 cents if you include data tranfer overhead, etc). In other words, $50 per megabyte.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobit
kb = kilobits, same as mb = megabits, not bytes. kB == kilobytes.
Today's front page of slashdot weights in at 517KB - that's over half a megabyte. At that rate, $3000 is just over 100 page views.
That's why you surf the lighter-weight versions of pages: http://slashdot.org/palm/ gives a front page that weighs only 8 KB. A page view at those rates is a dime, instead of $25.00
The slashdot.wml file http://slashdot.org/slashdot.wml is even smaller - 1,471 bytes, or 6 cents.
6 cents for a page using wml, a dime using wap, or $25.00 for "the full experience."
Web pages are getting ridiculously heavy, thanks to high-speed internet and people feeling that they don't have to optimize...
Actually it's because they're so heavily laden with advertising. Blocking the ads speeds things up considerably. In fact, when possible, I block everything that's not on the page I'm visiting. I don't know if there's a hosts file on the iPhone to edit.
What?
I *was* going to include MB for megabytes, just to get all the case modders going "Its MotherBoard, you f%@#tard!", but its not Tuesday :-)
Joke==>
0
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You
Be glad your not an employee. When I worked at Cingular it was a nightmare when customers called in and wanted you to explain their bills. It's so complex and ass backwards that often nobody that works for Cingular can even tell you what it all means. It's pretty stupid when you have to pow wow with two or three managers to get a decent guess at what the bill is trying to say. It's a definate case of information overload being used to hide the real content from customers.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
At the bottom of the
That reminds me of something a professor of mine used to say.
He required that all assignments be turned in to him in both paper and PDF format. When asked why, he simply responded: "because I love convenience and hate trees."
One day I had pink eye and requested to turn it in only via PDF. He responded by saying "my love of convenience outweighs my hatred of the dirty trees. PDF only, you sicko."
Let me quote an AT&T (SBC, so yes, this represents the Cingular side) executive for you on data:
."They might pass it on to their customers," he says of the fees that he wants to charge the sites.
... The new AT&T is wireless at the core in terms of great new handsets; in terms of enabling true anytime, anywhere mobility that our customers want and in terms of being innovative and service-oriented. If there are any jitters, it's from the excitement running through this company about our prospects.
.) should pay for each individual customer's access on a per-usage basis. AT&T also feels that wireless devices are the cornerstone of their future in ALL realms of connectivity, including business and entertainment.
From the Financial Times:
"We have to figure out who pays for this bigger and bigger IP network," said Mr Whitacre, who was in New York ahead of AT&T's annual presentation to investors and analysts on Tuesday. "We have to show a return on our investments.?
"I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network, obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees, but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud.". . . .
How does this apply to wireless, and in particular, the iPhone?
Simple. A quote from Ed Whitacre's sucessor (Randall Stepheson, or RS: in the following interview) explains that. From Gigaom :
OM: AT&T is a fearsome company now, with a weight of its legacy. Any first day jitters?
RS:
OM: There are a lot of challenges facing the company. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing AT&T as a company and you personally?
RS: Our biggest challenge as a company is to ensure that our customers really understand what the new AT&T is all about. We are the most complete communications and entertainment provider for the way people live-and that starts with wireless. When people recognize that, we win. It's the same on the business side.
My personal challenge is to make sure that the pieces we've assembled-industry-leading wireless, TV, broadband, global operations and local service work together as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
OM: How vital is iPhone to your company? I have never seen AT&T push something so hard that wasn't developed internally. Why is that?
RS: The iPhone is a radically innovative new device and it only makes sense that AT&T and Apple would partner to bring it to market. This device is very important to us, it's important to Apple and it is going to do very well with customers. It also reinforces with consumers that AT&T is the place to turn for the latest in wireless devices and services.
How do I read this? AT&T feels that content providers (Google, Yahoo, AOL, CBS, etc . .
It only follows naturally that being able to account for *every single packet* a customer uses is part of that billing strategy. You aren't going to be billed by AT&T on that basis; they're going to bill Google et al, and you'll get a bill from the content provider. Let me quote Whitacre again: They might pass it on to their customers," he says of the fees that he wants to charge the sites. .
Clear as day. If you don't see this coming a mile away, there's something wrong with you.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I had a 401(k) somewhere. I don't remember which investment company it was with, or what former employer of mine it correlated to, or anything. Anyway, I rolled it into an IRA I had, along with some other old accounts. It went well - except for the investment company leaving a balance of about $0.11 in the 401(k) account.
They now spend about $0.75 every quarter to mail me a thick statement telling me whether my balance has fallen to $0.10, risen to $0.12, or whatever.
I realize that informing them would be the merciful thing to do, but my sense of ethics isn't that overdeveloped, so I let nature take its course.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.