AT&T, How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways

April 4, 2011 4:42 pm

Some of you may remember my post from March of last year: Wait. You mean… I… I won?. Turns out I didn’t win.

The story then was about calling AT&T to complain about a price increase on my Internet service. By the end of the call I had changed my service agreement to include a phone line and reduce my monthly bill by $5. It didn’t make any sense as to how they could add a phone line to my service and reduce my price, but I went with it. To ensure my situation was what I expected, to quote my previous post:

So, she gives me the exact price quote. To be absolutely clear on the matter, I ask directly, “Is this an introductory offer?” – “No.” “Is there an activation fee?” – “No.” “Will I have the same DSL speeds I have now, 6.0 Mbps down, 768 Kbps up? – “Yes.”

It seemed good. I mean, those were the exact words I used and got as answers.

Turns out that Samantha, the CSR of March 2010, straight up lied to me when she answered 2 of those questions. Guess which ones!

I apparently didn’t blog it at the time, but that first bill I got with the new service had (can you guess?) a $41.45 activation fee! Way back when, I called and complained and eventually got them to reverse the charge. So that was lie number one from Samantha.

This month we got our bill and I discovered it was $15 higher than it should have been. So I call up to find out what’s going on and the CSR, Michelle, tells me that my introductory offer has ended and my price has increased to the regular price. Well, wasn’t I surprised since I was explicitly told this was not an introductory price. She, of course, was very sorry, but there was nothing she could do, but she would happily provide me a new introductory offer if I upgraded to a U-verse package. I told her I wasn’t interested in that and wanted to know what options I had for adjusting my service.

She transferred me to sales and after 10 minutes on hold Dave picks up. I tell Dave why I’m not happy and that I’m looking for options to adjust my service and reduce the price. He tells me there’s not really anything he can do. (Now, I’m signed up with the fastest DSL speed they offer, which is a crappy 6mbs down and 768kbs up, so I know that to reduce my monthly bill he could suggest I drop to a lower service tier.) He says there’s not anything he can do, but lets me know about the U-Verse service AT&T is bringing to my neighborhood. He never suggests that I could reduce my bill by lowering service tiers. (I’m not really interested in doing this as the service is marginal at times for Netflix as it is, but it is a possibility.)

So I assert that I’m still very unhappy that I was lied to by the CSR in 2010 and really want to find a solution. He offers a special discount of $10 a month for the next 12 months, so my bill would only be increasing by $5 per month. He tries to sell me on how this is such a great deal. I’m not impressed considering that in Provo I had a 15mbs up/down fiber-optic connection for $39.99 a month for 2 years without a contract and without a single price increase and without any installation fee.

Now, last year before we added the phone line we had just a bare DSL line (known as a dry loop). We were paying ~$40 per month before they tried to raise our price. So I asked Dave what the current options were for a dry loop. He told me they no longer offered dry loops in my area because they were phasing out their DSL service for the new U-verse service which he’d be happy to tell me more about.

I verify with him that he’s telling me that bare DSL service is no longer available for me. He says this is the case. So I ask him why AT&T is still advertising dry loop service on their website? And why, when I click on that, it says to call to set up service? He doesn’t have an answer.

So then I ask what’s going to happen to my current service if they phase out DSL? He says they’re grandfathering in existing DSL lines and will still allow you to get DSL if you also get a phone line (for now I suppose). This is rather preposterous to me.

So I ask him, if I were to move in the next few months would I still be able to get my current DSL service at the new location? He says probably not. I’d have to sign up for U-Verse.

Clearly, all signs point to U-verse. Figuring I may as well find out what he had to say on the matter, I asked about it. He tells me that the Internet-only U-verse package to match my current speeds has a ~$140 installation fee, a ~$75 equipment fee, and monthly prices starting at $45. Yah, that sounds like a great deal AT&T, I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t want to switch.

This is also disregarding the fact that I find it unlikely the apartment complex is going to want AT&T running around drilling holes and running fiber-optic connections all over the place. So it’s likely not going to happen here for a while even if I did want it.

So at this point I’m just cranky. They’re jacking up my rate (for the third time in the less than 2 years we’ve lived here) and pushing their overpriced fiber-optic service. But I’ve apparently managed to stay on the phone long enough to unlock another customer appeasement. Now Dave is willing to give me a $40 credit on this month’s bill along with the $10 per month discount (for 12 months). So over the next 12 months I’d only end up paying an extra $20 for my service instead of $180, so I guess we’re getting somewhere-ish.

Of course, since the last CSR I worked with blatantly lied to me I don’t have much reason to trust what he’s saying anyway.

So at this point in the call I pull up Comcast’s website because it is the only other Internet service provider in Livermore. Everything I’ve heard about them in Livermore lives up fully to their having won the award for Worst Company in America 2010. Sadly, their prices are all just as high (surprise!) so even contemplating switching would only, in effect, be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Out of options and needing to get back to work I agree to the $40 credit and the $10/month discount. But I’m still not happy.

Cars and gas

March 25, 2011 9:24 pm

I just got around to putting gas receipts from the last two years into my spreadsheet so I could look at trends in fuel efficiency and gas prices.
mpg
My fuel efficiency seems to have leveled out at about 30 miles per gallon. I seem to no longer have a seasonal swing due to cold weather like I did while in Utah. The little peaks are road trips where we get better mileage while driving long stretches on the highway.
dpg
Gas prices were pretty level for awhile at the $3/gallon mark. I’m still astounded at the massive collapse in prices in 2008. Prices were down to $1.50/gallon! But we seem to have put a stop to that. Gas prices are back up to $4/gallon here. Hopefully the rain will stop for the season soon so I can try riding my bike a few times a week to save some money and get some exercise.

Pizza

March 19, 2011 11:33 am

This was our second attempt at pizza. Last week didn’t go so well, the crust had trouble. But this week was a lot better. I overstretched it so I kind of had to flop it over on itself to get it to fit on the pizza stone, but it still tasted pretty good. I’m still working on the whole making it circular thing too. The crust we used had some reviews saying it was bland, so I added some honey and Italian seasoning which worked out great.
IMGP4272

On the subject of nuclear power

March 14, 2011 9:41 am

There is, of course, a lot of media coverage of the Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan which is suffering failures following the earthquake and tsunami there. I’d like to make a couple of points on the matter. First, nuclear power plants don’t explode like nuclear weapons. It doesn’t happen, it can’t happen. While nuclear explosions are simple in principle they’re actually quite difficult to make happen (You basically need perfectly symmetric pressure and exact radiation densities or you’ll only get partial explosions). So people need to stop tossing around this idea that the “worst case scenario” is a nuclear explosion. It’s not.

Second, I’ve seen media reports claiming that this event shows the “fragility” and “danger” of nuclear power plants and why they need to be avoided. This is a rather disingenuous statement. Let’s look at the plant and what happened. (Note that some of the details are still sketchy, so I don’t claim to be perfectly accurate in event descriptions. I’m getting most of my information from the Wikipedia article.)

Construction on the facility began in 1966. It’s old. The reactor designs are old (installed in the 70’s) and designs and safety systems have vastly improved in the intervening 45 years. So any failures at this facility really has no bearing on the safety of modern designs.

From my understanding the power plant in Japan was designed to handle a 7.9 magnitude quake. So the fact that it was still standing after an 8.9 magnitude quake shows the robustness of the design. Japan’s advanced earthquake warning system automatically shut down the 3 active reactors. Because the reactors shut down, they weren’t producing any electricity and the active cooling-system required outside power to continue operating (modern designs use passive cooling-systems that don’t require power to keep the reactor safe). The massive damage to the region’s power grid put them in a more vulnerable state and prevented external grid power from being used to power the cooling systems, but on-site backup generators kicked in as designed. Things would have been fine at this point, but then a massive tsunami hit the facility knocking out the backup generators. There was a protective sea wall in place, but the tsunami wiped it out.

At this point the next backup in the design took effect (this is 3rd-level backup) and batteries began supplying the necessary power. They had enough capacity to power the facility for 8 hours, but further supplies took up to 13 hours to arrive due to the extensive damage in the region. The effort was hampered by the fact that the planned location for external backup power generators was flooded by the tsunami.

Yet, despite all this, no major exposure of radiation has occurred. Some radioactive steam was vented from two of the reactors in order to reduce pressure in the cooling systems and prevent further damage. The most recent reported levels of radiation exposure that I’ve seen have been ~1000 microsieverts. Approximately the amount of exposure you’d receive in one year from normal background radiation. And, of course, this only applies if you are exposed. So while a lot of media is discussing the “dangerous” radiation levels, I’ve seen nothing showing which people might actually be exposed.

Yes, any exposure to radiation is bad because it will increase your lifetime cancer risk. I’ve stated this about the TSA back-scatter devices and it’s true of exposure from any other source as well. The important thing to consider in this case, though, is the larger context in terms of power sources. We’re going to generate our electricity somehow, so let’s look at one of the most popular choices: coal.

During the normal operation of a nuclear power plant there is zero radiation release or exposure to employees, the environment, or neighbors. However, coal power plants exhaust radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere as part of their regular operation. According to an article published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory a typical coal power plant releases 5.2 tons of uranium and 12.8 tons of thorium per year! By contrast, the atmospheric release of radioactive particles by the Chernobyl accident (1986) was ~6 tons.

To be clear on the matter, there is almost no risk of a Chernobyl style exposure at the Fukushima power station. And even if there were such a disaster, the release of radioactive particles would still be far below the annual release of a single coal power plant.

I still assert that nuclear power is the answer to the next 100 years of our world’s energy needs. The fact that this 40-year-old facility is still under control after the massive beating it has taken is a testament to the safety of nuclear power, not the fragility.