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AT&T
Cable Services: Your cable TV bill just went up, and, combined with limited offerings, a limited service area, and a staff of morons, cable TV ranks #1 as the suckiest monopolistic semi-utility with hidden taxes you can deal with in this county. Keep in mind that this price increase reflects absolutely no improvement in quality, level of service, or reach of service. Last month, I got a swell letter from AT&T, just like you did. It said prices were going up, but didn’t say how much or why. The rest of the letter was filled with corporate hogwash, including "our commitment to you...," "work hard to keep our prices reasonable...," "we strive to deliver the very best...." Blah blah blah blah. The letter was signed by Doreen Fletcher, General Manager, who used to be local and accessible, before AT&T took over TCI. I called the local office to ask why prices went up. As soon as I suggested that I was writing for a newspaper, Doreen was suddenly unavailable and the staff dummied up. The next business day, I got a call from AT&T Corporate Public Relations in Salt Lake City. The young lady was completely uninformative, but she sure knew how to spin that old corporate spin. She explained that competition drives prices up. Say what? How can this be, I asked? You have a monopoly to operate cable services. She ignored that. Oh no, sir, she explained. Satellite dishes are big competition. (Incidentally, she’s right about dishes. AT&T’s 10-K filing to the SEC (March 27, 2000) shows that it has been losing "domestic Basic-TV cable customers" since 1998. The may explain why cable programming is filled with "feel good" commercials about how great cable is, and how horrible satellite dishes are). Further, she pointed out, AT&T was raising prices so we all could have cable access to the internet some day. Imagine that! How wise to suck money from existing customers to underwrite future services they will sell for money! This gal spent 20 minutes shining me on. When I mentioned that in the foothills some people must have cable just to get TV (for example, if you live in a "bowl," as I do), she said there were penalties for living in the foothills. (The "penalties," by the way, are inflicted by the cable company. When I moved here in 1988, I lived on Willow Valley Road. The cable company told me there were "no plans" to put cable on that road. Today, a mere 12 years later, the cable company still says "we don’t reach that far." They stop at about the HEW building. Why, you might ask? Because there "ain’t no money" in going out further. And that’s the way cable works.) When I mentioned limited channel choices, she cried poormouth about the high cost of buying content from content providers. This always baffles me, considering most extended cable channels are filled with commercials. Why would AT&T have to buy them? She didn’t mention that AT&T owns 49% of Discovery Communications. I wonder if AT&T gets a price break. I let a week go by. I called our local AT&T office, where I told the staff I felt Doreen Fletcher had a really tough job. Again, the staff had eaten brain tumors for breakfast, because within an hour, I had a message on my answering machine from the PR bimbo in Salt Lake City – asking me to call back immediately. I didn’t. In "What Will Be," Michael Dertouzos, director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, predicted a giant fight for the communications "pipeline." That’s what the AT&T takeover of TCI is all about. They want the "bandwidth" and the goal is to carry your local phone calls, internet access, and television signals. Selling you overpriced premium channels is just a hobby. Fortunately, you will have the good sense to deny AT&T complete control over your communications. Satellite dishes and DSL internet access from Pacific Bell will help blunt AT&T’s ambitions. This county faces all kinds of incursions by corporations who are clueless about the local culture, yet we want and need the services offered. AT&T is just another one. Just think of AT&T as a blind, epileptic elephant in your family room. Pay your cable bills and buy a large litter box. Barry Schoenborn is a technical writer, and an 11-year resident of Nevada County. His column appears the second Saturday of the month. You can write to him at barry@wvswrite.com. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of The Union.
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