AT&T Chief Whitacre Sticks to the Script
August 3rd, 2006 by tkarr |
AT&T chief Ed Whitacre regurgitated now familiar talking points on Tuesday when he claimed — once again — that others can no longer eat AT&T’s broadband lunch for free.
“Some companies want us to be a big dumb pipe that gets bigger and bigger. No one gets a free ride,” Whitacre said, in a statement reminiscent of his now infamous interview last October with BusinessWeek.
Ummm… Aren’t we already paying for the ride, Ed?
Last I checked AT&T and the other large ISPs made $20 billion from our broadband access fees alone. It’s a piece of the $170 billion in annual revenues recorded by the four Bells — AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and BellSouth — for telecommunications services.
This lucrative business model — returning nearly $95 billion in annual gross profits to the Bells — has worked so well for AT&T that they recorded an 81% increase in profits over the second quarter of 2006
But what’s good news for Ed is often bad for the rest of us. Not only does he want us to pay more to ride AT&T’s gravy train, we now have to endure Whitacre’s B.S. along the way.
[Watch Ed in action captured by a videographer on August 1]
The AT&T CEO — with his army of PR flacks and lobbyists – will say whatever it takes to get Washington to award phone companies with control of the Web. Net Neutrality — the principle that guarantees that they treat all Internet information equally — now stands in their way.
In this game, winning over Congress isn’t about telling the truth. It’s about spending money, buying up lobbyists, filling campaign coffers and spinning politicians.
The telcos are good at this. Since 2003, telephone and cable companies have spent more on Washington lobbying than the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. On the issue of Net Neutrality alone, they ran up more than $100 million in expenses to grease lobbyists and politicians, buy TV, radio and print ads and fund phony grassroots groups like “Hands off the Internet” and “NetCompetition.”
Despite the telco shopping spree, Whitacre’s talking points remain flimsy.
This is not about AT&T fostering new innovation.
Compared with the computing industry, telecoms invest little money in actual research and development. According to Paul Starr, a Princeton professor and author of the 2005 book, The Creation of the Media, the incumbents in the telecommunications business “invest more in politics than in technology — indeed, they are downright frightened by innovation, whose ultimate effects they can’t control.”
This is not about AT&T providing cheaper and better choice.
The phone companies want to force content providers to pay protection money to get faster services. And it’s consumers who will pay. If Net Neutrality is so bad for consumers, why do ALL the major consumer groups support it and ALL the major phone companies oppose it?
As for choice, the GAO found that the median number of providers available to a given household is just two. That’s all. Cable and DSL systems dominate, holding more than 98 percent of the broadband market. This is hardly a competitive market. In fact, the share of the market held by all the other broadband technologies combined — satellite, fixed wireless, mobile wireless, and broadband over power lines — actually decreased over the past few years, according the FCC.
And the last thing an old-school monopolist like Whitacre wants is to offer choice of non-AT&T services – unless, of course, they’re offered by companies that have paid AT&T’s new access tolls.
This is not about content providers paying their fair share.
They do that already. According to “It’s Our Net” – a coalition representing eBay, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and other Internet companies – Web businesses already collectively pay billions of dollars per year to network operators for Internet connectivity and transport. That money fully compensates the network operators for their network investment. “Overall, the four Bell companies alone make some $14 billion annually in revenues from selling special access services to Internet content and applications companies, Internet service providers, and other corporate and institutional users of the local network.” FCC figures show that this business returns over 50 percent to the phone companies.
For Ed this is not about creating a faster, smarter, cheaper and more accessible Internet for Americans. It’s simply about increasing returns for AT&T shareholders.
That’s often expected of a CEO. But let’s call it what it is, Ed, and stop pretending that you have the best interests of the Internet at heart.
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August 3rd, 2006 at 6:11 pm
[…] “If Net Neutrality is so bad for consumers, why do ALL the major consumer groups support it and ALL the major phone companies oppose it?” […]
August 4th, 2006 at 5:16 am
You pose an interesting question: “If Net Neutrality is so bad for consumers, why do ALL the major consumer groups support it and ALL the major phone companies oppose it?”
My guess is the opposition from groups like Consumer Reports is based on ignorance of the underlying issues. Sure, they’re a great place to shop for information on washing machines and toasters, but their grasp on networking principles is a bit weak. One could easily ask why the search and advertising giants support these unnecessary regulations, if corporate size is such a critical issue.
Last time I checked, Google and Microsoft were just as capitalistic as the phone companies. And then there’s Cisco, another regulation opponent, who only stands to grow if the Internet grows.
Gosh, this is really kind of complicated.
August 4th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Richard, if no net neutrality regulation is imposed, the telcos and cable companies will likely add intelligence to their networks, which provides another business opportunity for Cisco, right? So Cisco benefits not only from Internet growth but also network diversity. And Cisco’s relationship with the network owners would be better if Cisco sided with them. This makes me think that Cisco’s interests are not necessarily aligned with social welfare (although they might be).
August 4th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Richard… turn away from the darkside
I’m sure we could use your technical expertise as long
as you stop trying to convince us that were too stupid
to understand it
August 4th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Clearly, the desire to leverage their (AT&T) network is at odds with consumer interests from the point of view of uniform access speeds for all content. It obviously reduces the leveling capacity of the web and turns speedy web access for contrent providers into a form of advertising under the guise of pure unfettered information. Smaller startups cannot expect to compete as they do now on the web with larger more capitalized companies who could buy faster access. The question become: where does this preferential treatment of content providers stop and when does it infringe on issues of free speech. This move away from internet neutrality potentially ultimately intrenches larger players and undermines and slows inovation and competition.
August 5th, 2006 at 2:00 am
[…] Full article here… […]
August 5th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
It obviously reduces the leveling capacity of the web and turns speedy web access for contrent providers into a form of advertising under the guise of pure unfettered information.
Huh?
The Internet isn’t “equal” today, because big content has much faster servers and much faster connections than the mom & pop businesses that Google claims to be protecting.
August 5th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
So the solution is even less equality?
Hey, SaveTheInternet guys… I couldn’t reach your site yesterday. Were you having difficulties with your server, or was it something else?
JR
August 6th, 2006 at 5:09 am
With the current fascist drift in government policy intellectuals, it would’nt suprise me if their ultimate goal was to filter out specific websites.
Voila’, no more moveon.org piped to your local internet hub because of some lawsuit issues somewhere. No more organized resistance. We live in Orwellian times, nothing surprises me anymore.
August 6th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Richard, you are arguing out of both sides of your mouth. The Internet is equal today, because the small websites also have small audiences, and though the big websites have faster servers and bigger pipes (that’s “tubes” in Stevensese) they also have larger audiences and much bigger traffic fluctuations. And they get far more revenue from any commercialization, which gives them money to buy more capacity.
Notice I said “buy.” They pay for that access, as you well know, which makes Whitacre’s lies rather transparent. You’re long on telling us what an expert you are, Richard, but usually short on actually giving us examples. Its no secret why. When you start quoting specifics, it leads the reader squarely to the deceptions in “hands off the internet’s” talking points.
The only one who wants a free ride at AT&T…
…is AT&T.
August 6th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
My, that’s a withering personal attack you’ve made, PBCliberal, I think I’ll have to go home to mommy and cry for many hours to get over it. You’ve really exposed me for the telco shill and liar that I really am. Shame is written all over me, and I’ll never blog again.
But seriously, you need to go read an article or two about packet switching. Google and their buddies in the ironically named “it’s our net” cabal have hookups and servers that enable to them to handle massive peak loads during the rare occasions where that’s necessary, but these systems enable them to provide faster access than any mom and pop could dream about under normal conditions.
When I ping Yahoo from my home, I see a round-trip-time of 10 ms, but when I ping the Guardian I see something like 180 ms. You’ve really got to twist yourself into serious contortions to call that “equal”. Of course, you can say “well, harumph, the Guardian is half way around the world and Yahoo is just down the street”, but Yahoo has arranged it so they’re just down the street from the entire World Wide Web. And that clever placement enables them to shape the traffic for all users of the Web, because nobody is immune from having their traffic wait in queues behind Yahoo’s.
When Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon are fully in the video-on-demand business, they’re going to have even more control over the tubes (they really are tubes, BTW) than they do today. So if you think an un-equal web is a bad idea, and that a small handful of virtual monopolies shouldn’t be in control of the speed of the Internet, you should oppose the regulations that would hand the keys over to them.
Is that specific enough for you?
August 7th, 2006 at 5:15 am
RichardBennet, well, do you mind if I call you Dick?
You see Dick, the internet for the most part is free. Big businesses such as Microsoft and Google naturally have faster servers and faster connections because they spend more money on those services. The internet isn’t equal in the speed sense because of geographical and technical limitations, not to mention the atrocious costs to put a gigantic pipe in everyone’s home.
Dick, I’m not sure how old you are, but I remember a day back when the Internet was new and there was no Net Neutrality, and only three or four big ISP’s existed and didn’t really intermingle, and boy howdy it was really bad.
My point is, geographical distribution of a company’s servers and the quality of aforementioned servers doesn’t make the Internet unequal, its that a query to yahoo.com wouldn’t purposely be lower priority than google.com, which makes the internet equal. If net neutrality holds, queries to a nazi afro-american feminist website wouldn’t be dropped, banned, blocked, handled differently because of content, or slowed because the query was from a rival company that shared the pipe, but handled as efficiently as it can to its destination. Just as it would to amazon.com or a rival ISP’s homepage.
August 7th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Ultimately its the millions of end users which currently control the massive flow of data across the net. The content/service providers are at the mercy of the publics interest in their content/service. This is how it should be and laws should be in place to ensure it stays this way.
The big ISP’s want a say over (via disrimanatory QoS) which content/services are successful on the internet (which translates into which ones we end users have access to) and that simply should never be allowed. Its wrong thinking to believe we the people must sacrafice our right to choose in order to get bigger pipes rolled out more swiftly. The duopoly have truly underestimated the public if they believe we can be convinced that its in our best interest to give them the power to decide which content/services perform the best and become successful. Its nothing but pure greed on the part of the duopoly and has nothing to do with benefiting society as a whole.
If my ISP promised me an upgraded 25mb/s download/upload rate delivered tomorrow (omg that would be sweet!) but only on the condition that they are allowed to choose which content/services perform the best I would tell them to stick their 25mb/s where the sun don’t shine!
Providing non-discrimanatory bandwidth is a lucrative business. If ISP’s are not happy with the money they can make off non-discrminatory bandwidth then they need to get the hell out of my way cause I would be more then happy with such profits. If they feel becoming a content/service provider is a better way to make money then their is absolutely nothing to
prevent them from using their millions to come with innovative content/services which we the people would CHOOSE to make successful.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Richard… I attacked your arguments and your contradictory logic in making them. I didn’t attack your mother, or your body type or the size of your private endowment. You weren’t personally attacked, so there’s no reason to make sarcastic promises that you can’t keep.
Ping latency is a measure of latency not bandwidth (unless you start making your ping packets huge.) In my world (which don’t involve systems with a lot of user/server real time interaction, latency is far less important than bandwidth.
But hey, you like packet latency so let’s go with that.
The folks who get the best deal on packet latency are the folks who own the last mile. They own all the end and distribution routers that actually talk with the cable and dsl modems in their customer’s premises. So if Google et al are special because they’ve got better peering arrangements that get their routers closer to my routers on paths with greater throughput, then the telcos and cable companies are in even better shape right now, today.
Nobody is complaining about this. BellSouth could be google, or yahoo, or youtube, but they didn’t have the creativity or the understanding to develop these systems. So now they want to end the impartial packet handling that we’ve always expected from the Internet (back in the days it was just an annoyance to them) and get into the content control business.
That’s why I say whenever you start talking specifics, you run headlong into the spinning blades of how things really are today. if yahoo and google wind up in control of the VOD business, its because they build a better system and therefore users go to their sites by their own choice. Not because end user’s ISPs use their monopoly status to lead them there.
Once again, perhaps we’re looking at this the wrong way. Let’s get true competition at the last mile, and then these guys can do whatever they want. Considering that “AT&T” is really a name sold as intellectual property from the original AT&T (which was going to set the world on fire at divestiture) to a company that was originally some of its owned RBOCs, I don’t think these guys understand how to prosper in a competitive environment.
Remember that thing you said “huh” to:
It obviously reduces the leveling capacity of the web and turns speedy web access for [content] providers into a form of advertising under the guise of pure unfettered information.
Another example. If you truly didn’t understand that, it calls into question if you really understand this debate. Maybe there’s just no way you can spin it. Or is that just another personal attack?
August 8th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
if yahoo and google wind up in control of the VOD business, its because they build a better system and therefore users go to their sites by their own choice.
Right, it’s not because Google has a million computers on the Internet with so much raw horsepower that nobody else can raise the money to build a comparable system. And they were able to buy a million computers because they didn’t have to dig up any streets and lay any tubes.
Clever dudes, those Googloids: they make all the money in the world (80-90% gross margins) and count on naive idealists to make the case that they’re wearing white hats.
August 9th, 2006 at 1:51 am
Yes, they are. They use their cleverness, (which I’d call creativity and forward vision) to create useful tools. They pay for their access from folks who claim they’re public carriers, and they want to believe that the carriers owe them the obligation of treating them fairly.
That’s not a difficult concept. I think the telephone companies secretly believe that because they carry a message they get to participate in its promulgation. They don’t.
August 10th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Google and every large corporation can be counted on to do whatever it can get away with in order to make more money. That is why the vast majority of citizens do not want what is rightfully our consumer power (i.e. to decide which content/services succeed) to be handed over to a duopoly!
August 10th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Speaking of AT&T…
If you are as frustrated with the rampant manipulation of the truth by the telecom industry as I am, you should check out the report released today by Common Cause, “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, Part II: More Telecom Industry Front Groups and Astroturf.” The report is the second in a series that exposes corporations in the telecom industry that pose as grassroots organizations to lobby congress to support their policies.
Here is the link: http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/{FB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665}/WOLVESREPORT.PDF
These organizations come up with gimmicky and misleading names like AT&T’s “Hands Off the Internet” or USTelecom’s “The Future…Faster.” They pretend to represent the voice of the people, but are really the voice of telecom companies hoping to convince Congress to legislate in their favor.
In the interest of full disclosure – and to distance myself from the telecom companies by presenting all the facts – I am an intern at Common Cause. However, the report is definitely a must-read for anyone wishing to make sense of the mess that that Net Neutrality debate has become.
Also see the original report, released in March: http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/{FB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665}/WOLVESREPORT.PDF
Be sure to check out both reports and read about just how much money the telecom industry puts into lobbying, and, left unexposed, how powerful they could be.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Here’s a tinyurl reference to the report:
http://tinyurl.com/edfyz
And (if this forum will pass an href) here’s the link
right to the pdf at the Common Cause site.
(Full disclosure: I have no connection to CC beyond being on their mailing list.)
September 11th, 2006 at 8:02 am
the managers names have been omitted to avoid a lawsuit. the company and the union are in bed together and the employees get screwed cause were in the middle. I would love to sell houses under contract the way AT&T manipulates contrcats …never have to actually give the house just resell it over and over…
I attempted to gain employment at South Western Bell since 1989. I was hired as a Temporary Cable Splicer June 1996. I was the only temporary to work overtime on loan to Installation & Repair. I was offered a permanent position about 6 weeks after I began working for South Western Bell. I was called by my First Line Manager, and told to report to his office to fill out the transfer forms for a position in Fenton. I asked him if he was dissatisfied with my performance and if that was why he was sending me to another job location, he stated if he was not happy with my work he would not have recommended me for the permanent position and I would not be working for him at all, so I must have proven myself an asset. I worked as a Splicer for 6 years. I enjoyed the work and was good at my job. I had no major issues and never had to file a grievance. I had six 1st line managers and three 2nd line managers in that time.
I was surplussed in 2002 and offered a job at ASI as a Network Center Technician. I did not want this position because I know I do not thrive or enjoy working in this type of environment. I was not going to accept the job but when I returned to the garage my first line, , was on the phone with placement, and I was wrongly advised this was the only offer I would get, so I accepted the position. I figured I could stick it out for a while. I had no idea a “while” would last this long. I came into this position with the best attitude I could maintain. I did “Win Backs” and referrals. I also addressed all the legislative issues that SBC and CWA asked me to. I voluntarily transferred from provisioning to maintenance because I knew my troubleshooting skills and telecommunications experience would be a benefit to customer service. I have proven my self an asset at ASI. The customer e-mails and company commendations I have received prove it. I had hopes that if I did all I could to help the company in every way I could it would benefit me in returning to an Outside Group 1 Position. I have waited for a transfer to come my way. I even tried to get a transfer by opening up my scope to the complete state of Missouri. I also changed my transfer status to accept temporary positions and still was unable to secure a transfer.
There was a time when I was proud to say I worked for the “telephone company” because any issue that I encountered I was able to resolve, either in person or by making a call to the correct department. And I could be assured it would be addressed and resolved. Now, when I admit to working for “the telephone company” I get accosted with emotions that range from anger to pity regarding the out right stupidity of our process for resolving Communications issues. I could tolerate that aspect by not admitting where I work, but I cannot escape the attitude while I am at work. And when the attitude from the customer is justified and any explanation I attempt to make just sounds like so much nonsense, that even I wouldn’t accept, I have to remove myself from the situation. I have attempted to address the issues with management but the response is one of two; “That is the system we have to work with” or, and this is my favorite asinine reply, “The security guards are only here to keep you from entering, not leaving, so if you don’t like it leave”. These are examples of the worst kind of management I have had to contend with in my tenure at AT&T. This leadership is unproductive and demoralizing and is one of the largest flaws with in this company.
I can no longer tolerate my participation in the combination of company inanity and customer “serviceless” practices I am forced to witness at ASI and by extension the company as a whole.
Some of the specific issues follow.
* Nine months after I was surplussed, “management” realized too many Splicers were surplussed and we were not returned by seniority. That in itself is something to get aggravated with and is one of the driving forces behind my frustration. Seniority should mean more than just picking vacation and work schedules. I was advised, after the fact, that since I accepted a lateral transfer within my Force Adjustment Area that my “surplus was satisfied”. What ever the criterion that was used to make the decision to surplus Splicers was not made based on any consideration I had any involvement with. Because I accepted the only job I was told I would be offered I am considered “satisfied” for the intent and purpose of the Company and the Union. I can honestly state I have not been satisfied in any manner since I have been involved with this force adjustment.
And when you consider that all the temporary “Project Pronto” techs were surplussed 6 months earlier than I was and they were able to get I&R titles, then surplussed again prior to the 9 month “management realization” and were able to return to the splicer title, it becomes a major issue for me and causes me to feel this action appears to be more about seniority manipulation than “needs of the business”.
Those techs never should have been surplussed to begin with because they were “temporary”. They should have been laid off, not surplussed. I had the opportunity to transfer to “Project Pronto” but was told that it was a temporary position and there was no job location guarantee when it ended. Because I only had 5 years service I could not justify taking the chance of where I would have to report when the project ended. Also the hiring of all those new temporary techs was unwarranted. That should have been apparent because for the first six weeks they had no work. There were a limited number of jobs for the Cable Splicers already on the payroll and it would have been better to have experienced techs performing the work when it became available. As it turned out I was loaned to Project Pronto to complete a job that all the time had been charged off but none of the work had been completed. I worked with a few of the “new” employees and saw first hand their ineffectiveness, which was a result of their limited experience, training and their attitude which was negatively affected because they were “temporary”.
* The procedures which AT&T operates under cause “Customer Service” to become a by-product of the actual goal of “Closing Trouble Reports”, which is what all of our “Quality Reviews” are based on. The attempts to quantify the vast array of issues and resolutions inherent with Telecommunications Repair are unrelated to actually restoring the service to the customer. It is desirable to know why an issue is not resolved, but when the “knowing” takes priority over the resolution it becomes detrimental to customer service and is incongruent with the function of the purpose of the Company as to what the customer expects. As an NCT I have no reasonable expectations of control over many of the aspects which affect the parameters I am held accountable for. There are too many “uncontrollable” aspects from “customer availability for dispatch” to “untrained” technicians that do not have a clue as to what a good working telephone line actually requires for dial tone, much less DSL to work. And these issues cause poor customer service which increases the aggravation and sense of futility that the customers I talk to feel.
Good jobs in 8 hours, Repeats in 10 and 30 days, and chronic repeats are the scale in which our service levels are weighed and these measurements have taken priority over actually resolving the issues. Management’s attempts to operate under budget with out overtime and with “skeleton crews” are adverse to the goal of meeting acceptable customer service levels. Until the “Network” is upgraded and aggressively maintained there are going to be delays and repeats on the services we are attempting to provide to the customer. You would think a company that understands how difficult it is to “win back” a customer would have a better grasp of this concept.
Also the limited training of the Network Center Techs is a major factor in the failure of this department. If it were not for my electronics degree, prior telecommunications experience and training supplemented by my fervor for this industry I would be at a loss if I had to depend on the training I received while at ASI. This limited training creates inability which coupled with the lack of concern for performing the job with quality customer service only fosters employee and customer frustration. When I transferred into this position I was told that “there was no training” for the techs who were here before me. My response was that since the DSC has been operating for almost 5 years that it is not inconceivable that someone could put together a “realistic training process” but that seemed to great a concept to be grasped. All this combines to create an atmosphere that is difficult to work productively in. And since I sought to transfer to an outside position I have had to attempt to work around these inept procedures while maintaining satisfactory ratings which has put an additional burden on me as compared to the network center tech that does not want to transfer and does not care about the longevity of their employment since they see this as a temporary job. There have been changes in the structure of this job but customer service is still less than the level I want to be accountable for, much less associated with.
* I was recently asked what really bothered me about my position as a Network Center Tech and my reply was hard to express as one particular item but at the top of the list would be that other employee’s failure to utilize all the tools at their disposal to do their job correctly adversely affects me and my ability to perform my job. Addressing the poor communications, lack of technical comprehension skills of our foreign representatives and the customer’s anger due to numerous failures to resolve problems the first time are the norm not the exception. And when employees seem to be able to find every reason to not do the job to resolution, instead of one reason to do the job, I get to deal with the irate customers, which fuels my sense of frustration. I am the point of contact for the customer and have had to endure their anger, which in most cases is justifiable, as a result of their frustration with AT&T. I am instructed to “Go beyond the call” but when I attempt to I am told by other departments that we cannot, because of an error and another department I cannot call has to fix it. Or a specific time commitment was made and missed. Or the tech dispatched to the premise does not call the DSC to verify that the issues are truly resolved. Or when I call outside managers to advise them they need their techs to return to the premise because there is no dial tone since the tech left, the manager states we cannot return and will have to reschedule for the next day. And the responsibility falls on me to inform the customer we cannot meet our commitment. And the real frustration comes because I remember, as a Splicer, when I could and did meet our customer service responsibilities, and provided quality customer service, instead of excuses.
* I also have issues with the Company and the Union because of the way the contract we have bargained for seems to be just a “suggestion” instead of a rule. The first page of the Contract talks about “good faith” but there seems to be no attempt to apply that practice by CWA or the Company. I have held up my part of the contract. The company has consistently ignored my seniority in regards to transfers. The “demonstrated ability” clause is used broadly and inaccurately in its scope which should be implemented in cases where seniority is equal but the job duties and experience are dissimilar, like a Supplies Attendant attempting to become a Splicer, not when the only difference is where the actual troubleshooting work is performed, as in the case between a Network Center Technician and a LFO. To disregard seniority because I have not driven a van for the company is a poor excuse to bypass me for a transfer, especially since I drove a truck as a Splicer. And this clause does not take into consideration the background which was used as a basis for my employment with South Western Bell, which is considerably more than most of the techs I have talked to about their telecommunications training and experience.
* CWA and AT&T have agreed to allow three year temporary positions contrary to the contract agreement of 18 months and CWA has made this concession, as I was told, as a trade off in order to restore some employees who were released due to surplus, but no concession was made in regards to my transfer situation which forces me to believe that since I am paying the maximum dues that I am not a concern for CWA. Now that AT&T has temporary employees in the position I was forced out of I have no hope of transferring anytime soon. And the recent surplus only forces me to be last in line again. I see no reasonable hope that I will be allowed a transfer in a timely manner, if at all. And continuing to persevere in this position with the poor levels of customer service that have become the “norm” is not what I want to be associated with.
* Some would say that this is the way “Companies” operate but I disagree. The real issue is at the lower level of management. The first Line management I dealt with as a Splicer was straight forward in their approach. Their concern was job performance and that the work was completed on time. Most issues could be resolved with simple discussion. Those managers did not have time to waste on meetings; we resolved our few concerns standing by the truck at the job site. But most of the managers I have had to contend with in my 4 years at ASI have shown little regard for the overall work I performed. They only seemed to focus on ways to tell me I was not performing the work, not how to improve my performance.
In one instance, I was the point of contact for Dish satellite contractor filtering issues at the request of my 2nd line . I accepted the extra duties but stopped when it became apparent that my manager was more concerned with separate aspects of my job performance than my overall activities. This was a simple case of his inability to realize that my attempt to “go beyond the call” included work that could not be “quantifiable” in the limited scope he was attempting to maintain. The almost “god like powers” of 1st lines over their direct reporting techs is limited only by their desire to use it. The requirements of this job make it easier to fail, than to meet, the 100% levels that have been set as quality guidelines, thus making it easy for disparate issues to be the motivating force when managers determine who is meeting satisfactory levels. All you have to do is compare managers and their techs and you will find inconsistency. The basic point is that the mentality of the “Center Managers” as compared to the “Field Managers” is driven by unproductive activities. The only reason I can justify for this is simply that there are too many center managers and they have too little to do. The number of redundant emails I receive attests to that fact.
* I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how I can be on a step of discipline but be given a 100% satisfactory quality review for the year of 2005.
* You might question if I had so many complaints why didn’t I attempt to make changes. I attempted to make changes to improve this department and overall customer service because my motivation was based on gaining a transfer to an outside group 1 position and anything I could do toward that end was not beneath me.
I offered suggestions via the “Employee Suggestion Box” but have never received a reply as I requested, or saw my suggestions on the “feed back board”.
I suggested we move the Network Center Tech’s to the central offices so that we could work directly with the CO tech to address DSL issues. This would save revenues in two ways; eliminate the need to rent our current center in Earth City and eliminate multiple 1st level management positions because we would be under the CO 1st Lines.
I suggested we return to “Full tech installs” to avoid causing our new customers the unnecessary aggravation of switching from a network that worked to one that we could not support. This would eliminate unproductive dispatches on denials. To off set the cost we would require the LFO to go to 5 other addresses and test for DSL availability and advise the customer, and if they were interested we could then set up the DSL and know it would work which would improve our appearance of customer service.
I suggested we increase the monthly cost of DSL and warranty everything to improve customer perception of our service commitment.
I suggested we set up “Kiosks” at Central Offices and local retailers with a DSL connection and line testing capabilities to allow the customer a 24 hour access point for testing their modem and telephone line. By giving this access to the customer we enable them to be proactive in resolving their issues. And we eliminate the need for “India” and the time wasted on basic troubleshooting issues. This would also free up the NCT availability to address issues that are not resolved by installing a filter correctly on the customer’s telephone.
Until AT&T starts thinking out of the “call center” box customer service will continue to suffer. Wasting the customer’s time with calls to people who cannot be easily understood doesn’t make any sense for a Communications company.
I also gave a process model which would have allowed for stream lining the procedures of ticket ownership to my manager. It separated the duties of the techs within a group into specific functions so that we could address tickets in a timely manner. It was brought to the attention of the 2nd line but rejected due to ticket ownership constraints which in my opinion were geared more for micro managing the techs instead of timely customer service. And now with ticket management, WITT and ATAS the main focus of my ideas have been implemented.
I aggressively addressed “Capacitance” issues that were a major cause of repeats. I advised and volunteered to teach a class but my manager would not allow it at that time. I let the issue drop since it was not important to my immediate management why should it be important to me. But after dealing with the irate customers and the issues created by foolish repeats I again addressed the issue. I tracked the tickets I handled in a two week time frame and sent the information to the 3rd Line and was told PMEI would add it to Peer Training but nothing has been done to address the issue center wide. The only manager who actually took any interest in improving customer service on this issue was and he had me train his techs.
I am resigning from AT&T as an Network Center Tech due to the aggravation of incompetent management and the frustration of inept procedures that consistently fail in attempting to provide quality and sensical customer service coupled with the doubt of a timely transfer to an “outside” Group 1 title has caused me personal issues, which have negatively affected my attitude and quality of life. In this case the fear of the “Known” is greater than the fear of the “Unknown”. Better living through chemistry is only an option if you enjoy what you are doing. Taking “meds” to entice a positive attitude is a poor substitute for a good reason to continue working in this position at AT&T.
Until recently attempting to transfer back to an outside position was my goal. Now getting out from under the Company and the Unions manipulations of the contract, that have negatively affected my ability to transfer to a job I enjoy, is my final goal. Four years of this nonsense is more than enough for me. Maybe if I had hired into this job, and not as a Splicer, then I could contend with the issues, but since I remember when I had pride in what I did and that I was able to make a real difference for the customer, I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of this endeavor. And maybe if the majority of the managers I met here appeared to be motivated by more than their yearly bonus they would be more vocal about the failings in customer service instead of just shrugging and stating they can’t make any changes to the system we have to work with. Why it is not being addressed more aggressively and timely is something I cannot surmise, that it should have been is a long over due conclusion. Just because on a report it appears we are “DELIGHTING EVERY CUSTOMER… ONE AT A TIME….” it might be beneficial to consider who is generating that report.
I am disappointed I am not getting to my goal of 30 years and retirement at AT&T but I guess I can truly say I know what it means to be a customer and be disappointed in AT&T.
Displaced Splicer
September 13th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
How much would it cost to pay for the pipes? Why couldn’t there be a pipes fee/tax for everyone who has an ISP account? How about an extra dollar per month? If this has been proposed then why isn’t it being pushed as an alternative? I imagine someone must have thought of this.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Is the problem that the pipes are priceless(impossible) and the price to ride is being dictated by the builders who aren’t satisied with their current compensation? If so, what is the price?
July 30th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
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