AT&T's Bad Math Strikes MythBusters' Savage

etherlad writes "MythBusters' Adam Savage got a bill charging him $11,000 for 'a few hours' of Web surfing while in Canada, using his AT&T USB Mercury modem. AT&T gave him a quote on the data rate: '.015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb.' Looks like AT&T didn't learn from Verizon's inability to do math. AT&T is also claiming Savage downloaded over 9 GB, which he calls 'frakking impossible.' Savage's huge following on twitter got him a speedy response by AT&T."

Comments

Soz this mean we get a cellphone special now?

[Shadow of Eternity]

Bust the all the myths that the companies quote about why they need to charge what they do, reliability, and especially that there is competition in the marketplace?

Re:Soz this mean we get a cellphone special now?

[randomnote1]

lol...I don't think so. I think that everybody knows that myth is BUSTED!

Re:Soz this mean we get a cellphone special now?

[The Archon V2.0]

I have seen this before - what is it about saying 0.02 cent when you mean 2 cent or 0.02 dollar?

One time in science class, grade 10, we had to do something where we were given some basic info about an object made out of aluminum and the market cost of aluminum. We had to figure out the raw-material cost of the object, assuming no loss during construction. So we had to use our lessons on density and whatnot to figure out the exact mass of the object and then simply multiply by price.

Problem is, most of us screwed up the ".02 cents per gram" (or whatever) part and did .02 dollars, so we were off by a factor of 100.

Class response was... informative. The few observant students who got it looked smug. Some smacked their heads at missing that. A few were severely pissed that they got the question wrong over the one part of the question that had nothing to do with science. One got that part right but botched the density part of the problem. The underachievers were either confused by the whole thing or glad they didn't even try.

And one guy... one guy spent ten minutes arguing with the teacher that .02 dollars and .02 cents were the same thing. Half a blackboard of diagrams later and she gave up trying to explain it.

Now I know where that guy works.

He should'a known...

[clone53421]

".015 cents, or a penny and a half"

Let me guess... whichever is larger?

Re:He should'a known...

[jd]

No, you divide the larger by the smaller.

Re:He should'a known...

[elashish14]

Ok! Ok! I must have, I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.

Re:He should'a known...

[corsec67]

Its ok, you can take your agression out on the printer.

Re:He should'a known...

[dotgain]

What the fuck does that mean?

Re:He should'a known...

[Mesa MIke]

No, no, no... You do it like this!

Re:He should'a known...

[RawsonDR]

I can't believe no on Slashdot has pointed out that .015 cents != a penny and a half

That's because that is suppose to be the obvious part, but isn't to surprisingly few people. That's the whole point.

The rate really is 1.5 cents per KB, but it is constantly quoted as .015 cents.. that is, the number is typed out in dollars (.015) but because everyone knows that a price in fractions of dollars is really talking about cents, that's the unit spoken by a lot of people when interpreting it. "Point zero one five cents." And they don't understand that they have changed the value.

It's not a matter of a haywire billing system, it a matter of false advertising by those who misquote it and to those who (gasp) interpret things literally - the ones who don't are just suckers.

Re:He should'a known...

[JWSmythe]

    I was up in Canada for a coupe months, a while back (like, a few years ago). We learned quickly that the calls were expensive. Luckily, I got my first bill at home shortly after my arrival, so it was very obvious, and only several hundred dollars high. My work reimbursed my phone expense, and my cell calls suddenly became "state your emergency" and "I'll call you back from my land line", which was actually my Vonage phone plugged into a wireless bridge in the hotel. :) They still got me for international roaming, which was still a bastard.

    That's actually one of the nice things with the Vonage phone. If I'm out of town for more than a couple days, I bring a spare handset and the box, and plug it in when I settle in. I've gotten some strange looks wandering the halls of a hotel on my cordless phone, but the calls didn't cost me any extra. :)

    American cell phone providers are generally terrible. Our phones, for the most part, won't roam to Europe or Asia, but I've had people from Europe come here without any substantial problems. Ya, ya, I know the technical reasons. I don't like them, nor the contractual reasons. Cell phones are for portability, why can't I get on a plane in New York, and hop off in Hong Kong, and call home? For a 1 week job in Amsterdam, I picked up a cheap prepaid just so I had a number people could call.

Re:He should'a known...

[hattig]

This is why call centre scripts should never use symbols, like "$1.50", or in this case "$0.015". They should explicitly write out what the person will say, i.e., "one dollar fifty", or "one point five cents". This is because people are incredibly stupid/prone to fluffing things up under stress, especially in a dull repetitive job dealing with annoyed customers.

Anyway, 9 GB in a few hours eh? For casual web browsing? To get to 9 GB would require watching TEN HOURS of TWO MBIT video streams. I suspect YouTube is 500kbps so that's FORTY HOURS of YouTube. To consistently get two mbit on a 3G modem would be a miracle.

Lucky for them

[Wuhao]

I'm not sure what a crowd of angry MythBusters fans would do, but I'm sure that it would involve large amounts of kinetic energy.

Re:Lucky for them

[rackserverdeals]

It's not the fans.

You don't mess with people that blow stuff up for a living.

Even if they're nerds.

Re:Lucky for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they're nerds.

You don't even mess with pissed off nerds.

no way in hell!

[FudRucker]

there is no way in hell AT&T would be getting that kind of money out of me! you hear that AT&T?!!

from the people who brought you this commercial...

[starblazer]

IDK MY BFF JILL DOZ MTH 4 ATT

Celebrity status?

[elashish14]

I wish I could have a mass following behind me that I could use to blackmail evil corporations.... Instead, here I am just clicking away at every Microsoft ad I see hoping that it'll eventually rack up some respectable cost to them.

-bitterness, sad face-

Re:Celebrity status?

[hey!]

Well, when I was young, man moons ago, we used to have these things called "consumer protection laws". You could walk over to your phone and call a government hotline for help. Of course, you'd get a massive shock when you picked up the phone because of the electrostatic action of your polyester leisure suit, so I'd have to conclude that on the whole things aren't any better or worse than they used to be.

Re:Celebrity status?

[Binestar]

Actually, he's got 55,000 and growing followers on twitter. In the last 7 hours he's sent out a dozen or so tweets. To 55,000 people. 25 cents (.25 dollars) per text == AT&T making a lot of money off Adam's outrage.

He just got commision =)

Re:Celebrity status?

[AbRASiON]

Oh America!
Being charged money to RECEIVE SMS and phone calls, absoloutely apalling, my condolences. :(

- The rest of the world.

Re:Celebrity status?

[grotgrot]

Being charged to receive cell calls makes sense. In other countries such as the UK calling a cell phone costs the caller more than calling a landline. How do you know which you called? Cell phones have their own area code. In the US there are no area codes for cell phones so there is no way for a caller to know. Conceptually the call goes to the regular area code and then has to be transmitted by radio to your phone and the latter bit is why you are charged for incoming and outgoing calls. Of course it doesn't work like that under the hood any more but it used to in the begining. Either way someone is paying extra for the cell phone call cost.

Some countries don't have this system but they aren't comparable to the US. All of the UK, NI and various islands fit in 2/3 of California. Germany is the same size as Montana. The scale is very different.

SMS receiving used to be free. The reason for the charges is because of a corrupt market. The carriers have a cartel. They fought very hard against number portability. There are two different radio systems, and even the one used by the rest of the world (GSM) is on different frequencies. Phones are sold cheap but lock you into a two year contract and you are unlikely to be able to use a phone between carriers even if it is unlocked. All this minimizes the ability of consumers to change carriers. The cartel players also by some miraculous coincidence charge exactly the same for SMS. Whenever one raises the price, they all do.

A secondary issue is that voice is charged too cheaply since that is what the headline number looked at by consumers is. Consequently the carriers make up for it by nickel and diming on every single other thing they can, including SMS.

Re:from the people who brought you this commercial

[PayPaI]

Math? Myth? Meth?

Let's not be cynical

[unlametheweak]

Savage's huge following on twitter got him a speedy response by AT&T."

I'm sure the response would have been just as fast if he wasn't famous and wasn't using Twitter. These large companies have professional Human Resource departments to make sure that the customer service experience is good.

Re:Let's not be cynical

[Nirac]

Someone forgot to tell Verizon.

http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ (blogspot.com)
It's long (27 minutes) and old, I know. Still worth a listen if you haven't heard it before. Also still funny if you have.

Re:Let's not be cynical

[somenickname]

You forgot the part about him having in depth knowledge of explosives.

Re:Let's not be cynical

[memoryhole]

The data carriers MUST stop thinking in kilobytes and start thinking in customers."

Aaaaaah! Get out of my head! You're not allowed to think in me! ... why do I have a sudden urge to buy Lightspeed Briefs?

Verizon?

[Centurix]

Well, *THERE'S* your problem.

Re:Verizon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not reading the article title much less the summary or article?

Well, *THERE'S* your problem.

Customer service?

[RealGrouchy]

FTA:

[AT&T] hasn't exactly been garnering positive reactions from its legions of Twitter-using members.

I'd say. If their customer service is anything like cell phone companies up here, it probably takes more than 140 characters to navigate their phone tree to talk to a human!

- RG>

these insane usage charges

[arbiter1]

anyone else think those companies are crooks for charging per kilobyte like that is complete bull s(*@# ? just loading a damn web page like cnn.com is almost 1MB so that would be 1$

Re:these insane usage charges

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

There's nothing wrong with charging per kilobyte. What they should do is *only* charge per kilobyte, and not differentiate between "voice", "local calls", "tethered data", "text messaging", etc. It's absurd that it's cheaper to acoustically-couple a 300-baud modem to your cell phone for 5 minutes than it is to transfer the equivalent amount of data over text messaging, despite the massive overhead of the audio traffic.

First response...

[Landshark17]

Upon seeing the bill I'm sure his first response was, "I reject your reality and replace it with my own!"

Re:First response...

[jo_ham]

Or Michael Jackson when they told him he was black.

Or alive.

Re:from the people who brought you this commercial

[Hal_Porter]

Math busted.

Iran and AT&T vs. Twitter

[corbettw]

Two of the most powerful entities in the world are humbled by Twitter. Be afraid, be very, very afraid.

Re:Iran and AT&T vs. Twitter

[taucross]

When you're trying to divide and conquer, any communication is scary.

Re:Its 1.5 cents per KB

[pushf popf]

AT&T clearly states on their website its $0.015 which translates to 1.5 cents per KB.

I've been around since data was shoveled through modems that were so slow that you could actually type faster than the modem could transfer, and data was sent dial-up over expensive long distance phone lines.

And it was still cheaper than 1.5 cents/KB.

Does AT&T send a free jar of Vaseline with each new contract?

Is this really "only" a problem with a huge bill

[failedlogic]

This stuff always makes the headlines when the bill amounts to 1,000's of dollars. The real problem is that there are probably a constant stream of people being billed $5, $20, maybe $50 for the usage. When they pass it off and just pay it, then the company lines its pockets with easy money.

Okay, I'll bite...

[tehtrex]

9GB of data is 9,437,184 KB. The numbers don't add up.

".015 cents": 9,437,184 KB * $0.00015 = $1,415.5776
"a penny and a half": 9,437,184 KB * $0.015 = $141,557.76

Since the published data roaming rate in Canada is $0.015/KB, let's go with "a penny and a half".

$11,000 of usage at $0.015/KB equals 733,333.33333333...KB or 716.145833MB.

So not only do they not know the difference between a cent and a dollar, but their system for measuring data transfer is also off by a factor of ~12.87... unless they somehow billed him for .015 cents and then tacked on 10k in fees...

Re:Okay, I'll bite...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's per kilobit, not byte. 9,437,184 * 8 * $0.00015 = 11,324.6208 ~ 11,000

.015 cents per kilobit

[slashqwerty]

Given the way the math works out I'm going to say it's .015 cents per kilobit. AT&T claims he used 9 gigabytes. That is 9,663,676,416 bytes = 9,437,184 kilobytes* = 77,309,411.328 kilobits. At .015 cents per kilobit it comes out to $11,596.41. The summary claims he was charged $11,000.

* down with the kibi prefix!

A Billing System Deficiency

[carlzum]

No one should be held liable for outrageous bills like this. AT&T failed to put reasonable controls in their billing system so customers are alerted when there's an obvious technical error, unauthorized use, or a simple mistake. American Express says my credit line is unlimited, but if I try to spend $100k they will decline the purchase and contact me. If I had a history of paying $100k bills they may allow it. But AT&T allows an account that's never exceeded a few hundred dollars reach $11,000. We all know why, unlike American Express, AT&T doesn't incur $11,000 in expenses so they don't bother doing anything about it.

It doesn't make any sense to me. Most people are unable to pay the bill, and anyone that can afford it has the resources to fight them. Either way, it generates a lot of bad PR and very little revenue. I'm surprised Apple hasn't put more pressure on them, these stories are frequently reported as "man receives $10,000 iPhone bill."

Re:A Billing System Deficiency

[wwphx]

Customer service Epic Fail. I find it interesting that people aren't mentioning that this is actually Cingular, AT&T cellular died years ago and was bought out by Cingular, who later re-branded as AT&T because they thought that had better name recognition. AT&T flubbed a CRM install and it tanked their customer service, and they died. It just happened that the two companies used the same cellular technology (GSM or whatever) and a merger was possible. Sadly, Cingular's customer service was really no better than AT&T's, so you're still dealing with a sad and lonely monster.

I use Alltel. Driving to work a week ago I got a text message saying that my account had high usage and I needed to call them. My wife had just spent a week on the other side of the country, her cell is an additional line on my plan. We spent a lot of hours playing WoW and talking while she was gone, and I didn't know she was roaming. $600 worth of charges. Alltel saw the problem, contacted me, and offered me a plan upgrade for $20 a month that gave me unlimited nation-wide roaming, and that by doing it, it would be retroactive and I wouldn't be hit with a $600 phone bill.

THAT is customer service. I don't know what AT&T provides, but it ain't customer service. Cellular service in the USA has always been hideously monopolistic compared to a lot of the world, and somehow they get away with it. Hopefully that will change some day, probably the same day that I can easily buy an iPhone from an Alltel store and not have to deal with AT&T.

Re:You're fucking stupid

[Hal_Porter]

Sir, you get one "fuck" per post for free on the Basic Slashdot PricePlan(tm) as you can see on page 2539 of your contract. We assumed from your post that you've decided to take advantage or automatic update process to the Slashdot Super High Enterprise Class Ultra Premium PricePlan(tm) as described in page 1845 of your contract. Yes, that is $199.99 per month plus sale tax and there's a $9599.99 plus sales tax service charge if you change to a plan with a lower monthly price in the first 48 months. Page 3453 of the contract. Well then your copy is updated. I've got the latest contract here, dated 29th of June. Yes 29th of June 2009. Um Sir, there's no need for that language ... Sir the audio quality on this line is kind of bad and I can't hear you very well, and I'll need to change to my headset. CLICK. BRRRR.

My favorite quotes from the article

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

"nobody wants to mess with a man who blows things up for a living."

why is it so expensive anyway?

[speedtux]

I don't understand why data is so hugely expensive in the US anyway. In Europe, you get unlimited data plans starting at EU 5/month (EU 25/month for unlimited 3.5G usage). Or you can buy 3G access day-by-day for EU 2.50/day. Some plans have international data roaming caps anywhere within Europe at EU 15/day.

Only in the US...

[torkus]

Only in the US do you have this insanity. I'm returning from a trip to Stockholm and you can get unlimited 7.2MB broadband for about 40 bucks a month including taxes. 25 if you already have a phone plan. My swedish is lacking, but poking around with google translator I didn't find anything about bandwidth caps.

Again: $25-40US for UNLIMITED 7.2Mb broadband. Including taxes.

Off the top of my head, not a single major WIRED provider in the US even matches that price ... and many are talking about implementing bandwidth caps. Wireless? Bah. No big provider is unlimited and you're coughing up at least $60 + taxes and good luck actually getting 7.2Mb.

Re:You're fucking stupid

[syousef]

Sir, you get one "fuck" per post for free on the Basic Slashdot PricePlan(tm)

Slashdot is pimping?