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AT&T Communications

AT&T Scrambles To Install Fiber For 90-Year-Old After His Viral WSJ Ad (arstechnica.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the happy-ending dept.
Jon Brodkin, writing for ArsTechnica: When 90-year-old Aaron Epstein bought a Wall Street Journal print ad to complain about his slow AT&T Internet service, the impact was immediate. Reporters like me called him and wrote articles, talk of his plight went viral on the Internet, his ad made an appearance on Stephen Colbert's Late Show, TV networks interviewed him for nightly news broadcasts, and AT&T executives sprang into action to minimize the public-relations damage. Now, barely a week later, Epstein's home in North Hollywood, California, has AT&T fiber service with unlimited data and advertised speeds of 300Mbps in both directions. In a speed test yesterday, download speeds were 363Mbps and upload speeds were 376Mbps. It's a gigantic upgrade over the "up to" 3Mbps DSL he and his wife, Anne, struggled with before.
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AT&T Scrambles To Install Fiber For 90-Year-Old After His Viral WSJ Ad More

AT&T Scrambles To Install Fiber For 90-Year-Old After His Viral WSJ Ad

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  • And AT&T will thank him... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Angelwrath ( 125723 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @04:29PM (#61057392)

    With a much higher bill every month, because they can get away with it in broad daylight, no need to send the eye-opening bill later.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      With a much higher bill every month, because they can get away with it in broad daylight, no need to send the eye-opening bill later.

      Oh, please...pretty please let Greed N. Corruption working for AT&T do this to this man.

      The world, awaits his next full-page ad.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Actually, if they don't make up some special charge for him, it will probably be the same or lower. AT&T pretty blatantly sets their prices based on competition and I think they assume anyone on their slow ass services is stuck with them, so they actually charge quite a lot for those shitty speeds. I know for my current house, my 18/1 service costs more than what AT&T offered for at my old house for much faster service. But at my old house, I had Charter, where here, AT&T is the only wired servi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rnturn ( 11092 )

        Yeah... AT&T and their fiber. That was the reason we couldn't get DSL back when we tried getting internet connectivity back in the day. We got some song and dance about the fiber not being compatible with their copper installation, so no internet for you. The only copper solution we could get from AT&T was their hugely expensive version of IDSL with lots of restrictions what you could do with the connection. We had to go to Covad and live with their IDSL but, at least, at a greatly reduced cost and

        • AT&T had been collecting fees from everyone under the sun that was supposed to be used to build-out their internet infrastructure. Instead it seems to have been used to buy up the Baby Bells in order to put the broken-up AT&T back together again. IMHO, another break-up is in order.

          Everyone seems confused by this. Today's "AT&T" actually is a baby bell that renamed itself later. Buying up the other Baby Bells was completed a long time (15 years) ago.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • Must suck to live in a "capitalist" country.

          Here in Germany - by law - providers have to connect you. At no cost for you.

    • Re: And AT&T will thank him... (Score:4, Informative)

      by t4eXanadu ( 143668 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @11:54PM (#61058424)

      He sort of already paid $10,000 for it. That was what it cost to run the ad in the WSJ to get AT&T's attention in the first place.

  • If every one filled up every advertising spot with their slow internet stories, it could really embarrass the monopoly isps, this is also an opportunity for the likes of Starlink and Oneweb to advertise "Capless 100 megabit internet no matter what location" in every newspaper possible. I my self am waiting for Virgin Media in the uk to be embarrassed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dissy ( 172727 )

      this is also an opportunity for the likes of Starlink and Oneweb to advertise "Capless 100 megabit internet no matter what location" in every newspaper possible.

      It's really unfortunate but neither of those services are at the point to be able to help.

      Starlink is the best hope, but will be a bit still.
      I signed up for the beta a little over three months ago, when it was first mentioned here on Slashdot.
      They still don't offer services to the US east coast, and no emails so far they plan to be soon.

      Oneweb recently filed for bankruptcy and aren't taking signups what so ever.

    • How much does it cost for an ad? Can we start a crowdfunding campaign. I'd be willing to put some money in the pot.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dissy ( 172727 )

        "Epstein paid $1,100 to run the ad for one day in the Manhattan and Dallas editions of today's Journal, he told Ars in a phone interview"

        • FTFA...

          Epstein said the ad cost him $10,000 (not $1,100 as originally stated). "I chose the only route that I know. There are other people that know how to get up on social networks and voice their complaints," he said.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dissy ( 172727 )

            Oh my, that's more than a tiny difference! Thanks for pointing out the correction, I completely missed it.

            The original (mis)stated price is almost within reason. But I suppose they have to price it high enough to keep the trolls away. Not that I was thinking about such a thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Wonder if I can get Charter to run a line down my driveway if I take out an add in the local Penny Saver.
    • Let me guess: You work for an advertising company and get paid a commission.

  • Sounds great... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @04:30PM (#61057402)

    Sounds great, now we just need every American to have this person's level of affluence and we'll finally have decent broadband in this country,

    • Re:Sounds great... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @04:34PM (#61057416)
      If you look at the quotes on the Ars article, AT&T claims 2-million residential locations a year. If we pretend there are 3 people on average in a residence, thats 110 million homes, so apparently they're working on their 55-year national fiber rollout plan.

      • The feds gave the broadband companies billions to upgrade infrastructure and it mysteriously evaporated.

        • No, you are using it now.

          Thats how government procurement works. Did you expect the 10 year rollout to end with everyone at the height of technology, or did you expect it to end with everyone on 10 year old technology?

          That money went into the @HOME rush. Many of us still remember. Where there once was only 56K twisted pair connections available, there was then DSL and DOCSIS, at the amazing speeds of up to 1 Megabit. That was the state of the art at the start of the rollout and thats what most people ha

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mlyle ( 148697 )

        That's slightly unfair, given that AT&T is the last-mile telephone carrier for an area covering 1/3rd of the US population and that cable carriers are filling the gap too.

    • Sounds great, now we just need every American to have this person's level of affluence and we'll finally have decent broadband in this country,

      Or enough celebrities to actually exercise their voices for something other than feeding their own hype and narcissism.

      This actually went somewhere, because of the celebrity-led shaming against a company.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      Sounds great, now we just need every American to have this person's level of affluence and we'll finally have decent broadband in this country,

      That was my thought as well: one household down, only about 100,000,000 to go.

    • Re:Sounds great... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @05:16PM (#61057538)
      The only way we'll ever get any real traction on expanding wired home internet is to break up the providers and forcing their ISP subsidiaries out on their own. AT&T has pretty much stopped giving a shit about anything that isn't wireless. The major driver for them to do FTTH and FTTN deployments was that at the time they though they were going to be a cable TV company (again) and they needed the infrastructure for their UVERSE TV service to ride on. Then they bought DirecTV and decided they didn't want to be a cable TV company (again), so they wound down UVERSE TV and their high speed roll-outs slowed to a crawl. At this point they have pretty much ceded the high-speed internet space to the cable companies and the handful of dedicated ISPs scattered about the country.

      Of course, that break up might happen naturally anyway. I'm honestly a little surprised AT&T hasn't floated the idea of selling or spinning off their internet and landline divisions yet so they can focus on wireless and content. It's pretty apparent that those areas are their focus right now.

    • Well, you need more than a certain level of affluence.This was a one-off. His neighbors still can't fiber.

    • I'm one of the few who's blessed with AT&T fiber, and while I have had very bad experiences with AT&T in the past, this last two years they've actually operated like a decent, respectable business. Back when I had DSL, they used to try to charge me to rent the DSL modem that I actually owned, and I would have to yell at them about it every two months or so. Interestingly, the neighborhood I live in is a lower-income minority neighborhood attached to a much more affluent town; I was not surprised tha

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      There's still some inertia to this story, so lots of people taking out inexpensive ads in their local newspapers - intermission

      "What's a newspaper, granddad?"
      "It's a paper version of the internet, now let me finish"

      Enough small ads, combined with an email to news-starved small newspapers, would see it gain traction. The small newspapers LOVE to see their articles republished in larger papers.

      It's a small window, but it *could* work.

  • Before getting better service?

    Well, he might not like the bill that he gets. (300MB/sec each way! WOW!)'.

    Maybe I should get off dialup now.

    • Before getting better service?

      These days, it's more the (attention) whores you know are out there. All you gotta do, is get one of them to bite.

      And boy you sure can tell they're hungry, when this is a hot topic on late night television.

  • that AT&T sold that pig in a poke to, this is simply a PR move because they got smeared in the press

  • Meanwhile, just a mile south of there... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @05:24PM (#61057576) Homepage

    ... my max upload speed is still firmly capped at 0.998mbit.

    What do I have to do, take out a full-page ad?

  • root causes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @06:33PM (#61057758)

    Offering that one guy fiber does absolutely nothing to address the root causes of overpriced and undersupplied broadband in the US, which are

    - Oligopolies enforced by local governments using franchise licensing. Municipalities are incentivized to drive up prices to customers by restricting competition because their own tax take of broadband service revenues is by federal law a limited percentage of those revenues. Your local government can collude with large corporations to limit consumer choice by suppressing competition to drive up prices.

    - Broadband corporations lobbying for state legislation raising steep regulatory barriers to entry to restrict competition, even in regions where those corporations are unwilling to provide broadband service. This is effective because it preys upon the naive belief exploited by the consumer protection racket that the purpose of government regulation is to protect customers, when often the real purpose is to further enrich the wealthy and privileged at the expense of all consumers. The first step of enacting consumer protection legislation is for elected representatives to invite in the corporations from which consumers need protecting to write the legislation. That, by the way, is the same way federal health care and banking regulations are written.

    - Government programs to develop rural broadband using direct payments from government to corporations instead of providing government-sponsored vouchers to customers for purchasing broadband. With direct payments from governments to corporations, ISPs take all the money but supply very little of the broadband. The only way to compel rural deployments with subsidies is to give the subsidies to the customers, not to the corporations. It is also anti-competitive for the government to give tax dollars directly to one corporation among all local competitors, instead of allowing the consumer to choose.

    • Offering that one guy fiber does absolutely nothing to address the root causes of overpriced and undersupplied broadband in the US, which are

      - Private capitalist ownership of inelastic public infrastructure

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      Yea go this man, personally I’m waiting for the second fiber isp to roll out in my area earliy summer 2021, a nice 66 percent and tv ( basic package) included for slightly cheaper than I pay now competition is really nice, if this continues I’ll get giabit at a decent price in a not to distant future

  • Hypocritical (Score:3)

    by dasgoober ( 2882045 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @07:30PM (#61057926)

    Because their current big ad push refers to how other providers have lots of fees, but Frontier has none!

    https://www.ispot.tv/ad/tzlM/f... [ispot.tv]

  • Nice that he can afford $300,000 for a ad https://images.dowjones.com/wp... [dowjones.com] but what about the rest of us with slow internet who don’t have $300,000 to run a full page ad?
    • No need to do some super special background research, especially when it ends up being way the fuck off. The initial articles clearly say he admitted to paying $10,000 total.
  • Awesome, next do the rest of us.
    • A much broader issue worthy of attention. The amount of noise over Tesla and Bitcoin which affects very few astonishing. Elon get the Sats going. Affordable Internet connectivity a global benefit .

  • Something doesn't add up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hall ( 962 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @08:26PM (#61058046)
    Not sure what's going on but if this guy's address didn't qualify for fiber-type service, I don't think ATT can put everything in place in a week's time to get him this new service. I have to wonder if his address qualified (i.e. fiber was on his street, remote-terminals were in place, etc) but it was something as simple as a database error/mistake in ATT's system that indicated he could not get service.

    • Re:Something doesn't add up (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @10:25PM (#61058306)

      It doesn't really matter what the reason was. The point is it was only by paying for an expensive ad and getting a bunch of media attention that AT&T provided any reasonable level of customer service.

      If it was a clerical error on their lists of eligibility, it's still AT&T's fault. If there is fiber running out to his area and close enough to hook him up this fast, wouldn't he have likely called many times before about the availability of fiber and told the sale rep "hey, everyone else on my street seems to be getting it, why aren't I eligible?" and rather than think critically or esc a ticket to have the anomaly looked at, the rep just said "durr, my screen says you're not eligible, so it must be true."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        First off, here is the actual ad he placed - notice how he states, in his own advertisement, that competitors in North Hollywood already offer 200Mb Internet service? The answer to his problem was in his statement of the problem - get service from a competitor.

        His Ad [twitter.com]

        Why was he so insistent that AT&T provide him better service when competitors already offered better service?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by SeaFox ( 739806 )

          By lighting a fire under AT&T's butt he can help promote a more competitive environment for the benefit of all. Just quietly going to the competitor creates a situation where the competitor is a de facto monopoly, much like how I only have a local cable internet company to go to for true "broadband service" because the alternative is slow DSL service from (wait for it)... AT&T.

          In this man's situation it seems Fiber was in the area and just not being run to his home, since as you point out they were

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SeaFox ( 739806 )

            In this man's situation it seems Fiber was in the area and just not being run to his home, since as you point out they were able to get him connected so quickly.

            I missed the person replying to me had changed, and it was not Hall (#962) as before, but the point still stands the infrastructure was there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Now, barely a week later, Epstein's home in North Hollywood, California, has AT&T fiber service with unlimited data and advertised speeds of 300Mbps in both directions.

      This story never made sense to me:
      - I never understood his loyalty to AT&T (Why spend $1,100 on advertisements when competitors offer better service options?
      - I find it hard to believe that "North Hollywood" is so under-served that only crappy DSL service is available

      I understand cranky old men, I can understand spending money to solve a problem and/or make a point, but to pretend that somehow AT&T rolled out a brand-new infrastructure in his North Hollywood neighborhood in a week is insane. Trenchi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      A database error could be resolved in a day, quicker if a Corp. VP decides to "make it happen"...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by boley1 ( 2001576 )

      When DSL came to our town, our address showed up as not being eligible. Having worked for the phone company's engineering and outside plant construction departments during college I had a pretty good idea of my city's and neighborhood's infrastructure. I called ATT, kept telling whoever I talked to that there was a problem with their database and that there was no way my location could not support DSL. Eventually I got routed to a lady in the basement of South Central Bell in Birmingham AL who had a clue

  • AT&T is an astounding failure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by petronyista ( 6295228 ) on Friday February 12, 2021 @10:35PM (#61058322)
    I have asked 4 times over 5 years for AT&T to install their internet service on my property in the LA area. 2 times I asked them on their website and got email confirmations. 2 times they approached me through some marketing campaign of their own and setup confirmations. One was 3 weeks ago. Each and every time, the sales rep or installers simply never showed up, sometimes for scheduled appointments. Just.. nothing. No follow up, No call. No apology. No care, no interest in a potential customer. When I then called a competing service I had the business account manager on my personal line within 5 minutes personally assuring me installation within 2 days, and they delivered. Been happy ever since. AT&T's lack of accountability for its employees is off-the-rails-bad, is the only thing I have encountered with them. They seem to operate like a government agency, not an institution driven by ethics or profits. I know the world is ugly sometimes, but for some reason it's particularly ugly with AT&T. I'd *love* to pay AT&T full retail for fiber service, but... they show no love for me.
  • He lives in one of most densely populated area in Los Angeles. If he was not happy with AT&T, why did he not just go with competitor's ISP. It is not like he lacked choices here. It is like you are complaining dial-up services is too slow where he can just upgrade to faster services.

    • I really can't speak for N Hollywood, but when I lived in downtown San Diego, I was in an apartment building where everyone around me had ISP options (most notably Cox), but I was forced to use AT&T.

      I think what happens is AT&T helps these places setup their network, then forces them into draconian monopolies. I can't be sure. But there are lots of AT&T exclusive residences in otherwise competitive neighborhoods.

      • That is understandable for multi-family unit like apartment, but he lives in single family home that does not have these restrictions. If he has money to buy advertising on WSJ, he has money to get better Internet service.
  • If you whinge about something loud enough you can bypass all the bs and get action? That sets a very bad precedent. I see entire sections of wall street journal filled with whinging in the near future.
  • ...it's only 300 Mbps? What year is this, 2005?

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