AT&T Promises Bill Credits For Future Outages (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0175852957
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/08/2028245/att-promises-bill-credits-for-future-outages
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/att-promises-bill-credits-for-outages-see-fine-print-many-exceptions-apply/
> AT&T, following [1]last year's embarrassing botched update that kicked every device off its wireless network and blocked over 92 million phone calls, is now [2]promising full-day bill credits to mobile customers for future outages that last at least 60 minutes and meet certain other criteria. A similar promise is being made to fiber customers for unplanned outages lasting at least 20 minutes, but only if the customer uses an AT&T-provided gateway. The "AT&T Guarantee" [3]announced today has caveats that can make it possible for a disruption to not be covered. AT&T says the promised mobile bill credits are "for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers."
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> The full-day bill credits do not include a prorated amount for the taxes and fees imposed on a monthly bill. The "bill credit will be calculated using the daily rate customer is charged for wireless service only (excludes taxes, fees, device payments, and any add-on services," AT&T [4]said . If an outage lasts more than 24 hours, a customer will receive another full-day bill credit for each additional day. If only nine or fewer AT&T towers aren't functioning, a customer won't get a credit even if they lose service for an hour. The guarantee kicks in when a "minimum 10 towers [are] out for 60 or more minutes resulting from a single incident," and the customer "was connected to an impacted tower at the time the outage occurs," and "loses service for at least 60 consecutive minutes as a result of the outage."
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> The guarantee "excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, or outages caused by third parties." AT&T says it will determine "in its sole discretion" whether the disruption is "a qualifying" network outage. "Consumers will automatically receive a bill credit equaling a full day of service and we'll reach out to our small business customers with options to help make it right," AT&T said. When there's an outage, AT&T said it will "notify you via e-mail or SMS to inform you that you've been impacted. Once the interruption has been resolved, we'll contact you with details about your bill credit." If AT&T fails to provide the promised credit for any reason, customers will have to call AT&T or visit an AT&T store.
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> To qualify for the similar fiber-outage promise, "customers must use AT&T-provided gateways," the firm said. There are other caveats that can prevent a home Internet customer from getting a bill credit. AT&T said the fiber-outage promise "excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, loss of service due to downed or cut cable wires at a customer residence, issues with wiring inside customer residence, and power outages at customer premises. Also excludes outages resulting from planned maintenance." AT&T notes that some residential fiber customers in multi-dwelling units "have an account with AT&T but are not billed by AT&T for Internet service." In the case of outages, these customers would not get bill credits but would be given the option to redeem a reward card that's valued at $5 or more.
[1] https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/02/22/2127240/att-restores-service-after-massive-nationwide-outage
[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/att-promises-bill-credits-for-outages-see-fine-print-many-exceptions-apply/
[3] https://about.att.com/story/2025/guarantee.html
[4] https://www.att.com/why-att/guarantee/?source=EC1NAT10600aff12A&cjevent=d3706641cdfe11ef8048001b0a1eba24&wtExtndSource=100017430
a long time ago... (Score:3)
When I worked in IT for an airline, if IT caused a critical systems outage the CIO would get billed per hour from flight operations if it caused a flight delay or cancellation. It was funny money, but the CIO's bonus was impacted by it.
If under the following conditions... (Score:2)
If the outage affects 10 towers, and it was over 60 minutes, and you were using ATT Gateway while juggling on a unicycle...
Now. Imagine how much goodwill a blanket proclamation might generate with no word salad qualifications.
If your service goes out again, at all, for any reason, you get a days credit on your bill. We're AT&T and we're trying to earn the privilege of your continued business.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that just by writing that, you just got pre-rejected from and job with a large corporation. (I wouldn't consider it a bad thing)
Re: (Score:1)
> for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers
None of that is word salad. Service level agreements need to be specific so people don't try to game the system for free service like they would with your generous alternative.
And you know what will happen in the future? (Score:3)
They'll roll back the promise, it always happens. This is a PR stunt.
Irony? (Score:2)
"AT&T said it will "notify you via e-mail or SMS to inform you that you've been impacted."
Re: (Score:2)
"You get that email about email being down?"
Translation: (Score:3)
"Our bean counters and Operators met and calculated that building a reliable, resilient network is more expensive than building an unreliable, fragile network and handing out some beads and baubles during the foreseeable outages."
What use is compensation with excess exemptions? (Score:3)
They're going to compensate you, providing you fall within a very narrow set of circumstances. That's not extending good will, or taking accountability, it's trying to skirt responsibility and congressional hearings.
> ”bill credit will be calculated using the daily rate customer is charged for wireless service only (excludes taxes, fees, device payments, and any add-on services,”
The taxes, and fees are part of the bill, if you don't compensate for them, you're not properly compensating.
> The guarantee “excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, or outages caused by third parties.”
That idiotic blurb is saying they can design something in the dumbest way possible, full of errors, and completely non-fault tolerant, then not cover the faults.
> AT&T says it will determine “in its sole discretion” whether the disruption is “a qualifying” network outage.
We'll monitor and regulate ourselves because that's fair, right?
> To qualify for the similar fibre-outage promise, “customers must use AT&T-provided gateways,”
Why? Unless the third-party modem is at fault, AT&T is still at fault.
I could keep going, but there are so many exceptions that unless your lottery winning lucky, you're not getting anything, and even if you do, you're not getting proper compensation, so WTF!
In other news (Score:1)
AT&T has announced they're shutting down after record losses.