Upgrade or else

I’m starting to lose track of the number of stories I’ve seen suggesting the troubling trend of service providers using shoddy service as a way to upsell customers on next-generation offerings.

Verizon long ago began drawing complaints that it was neglecting its DSL network as it rolled out fiber to the premises. Last month some CLEC technicians accused Qwest Communications of using interference from its fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) network as a tool to urge DSL customers to upgrade to FTTN. And now, according to one report, AT&T is siphoning off 2G wireless signal strength to bolster its 3G network, leaving some 2G customers with the choice of degraded service or shelling out more money to replace year-old 2G iPhones with the 3G version. AT&T denies this is the case. However, these stories are becoming increasingly common.

In October, I wrote about a friend here in Little Rock who moved across town and tried to transfer his AT&T landline voice and DSL service to his new address. While the voice service was transferred immediately, the DSL service wasn’t. The initial reason given for the delay was that my friend was transferring his landline phone number, and AT&T said DSL couldn’t even be ordered for the new location until it was disconnected from the old one (otherwise, the ordering system would be confused by a phone number tied to two different physical addresses).

Nearly three months later, AT&T still has not turned up my friend’s DSL service, claiming that its ordering and provisioning system never recognized that service at his old location had stopped. All the while, AT&T has insisted there is no way for it to intervene to correct the glitch; the only thing they can do, the company has said repeatedly, is keep waiting for its provisioning system to suddenly wake up one day and realize its own mistake. (Three months!) However, U-verse is available in my friend’s new neighborhood, and when he first complained of the delay in his DSL service, AT&T suggested he upgrade to U-verse voice over IP for uninterrupted voice service. Sound familiar?

I’m afraid these stories are only going to become more widespread, and consumers will soon be forced to realize that until they upgrade to next-gen services, they will have to play the role of ugly stepchild with their service providers. Of course, in many cases this frustration will lead customers to switch providers where they can. But since carriers already are suffering those losses anyway, it probably doesn’t lead them to think any differently about the undesirable economics of taking care of their legacy customers.