Posted in Technology & Science, tagged 3G, 4G, ad, agreement, Android, AT&T, bait and switch, best practices, brochure, buyer beware, cell, cellular, comparison, competition, competitive, complicated, confusion marketing, confusopoly, consumer, contracts, customers, data, de facto collusion, demand, dictionary, enforcement, English, experience, FCC, fine print, FTC, GoPhone, gotcha, GSM, handset, industry, law, marketing, messaging, misleading, moble, needlessly complicated, online shopping, OWS, package, pay as you go, phone, postpaid users, pre-paid, prepaid, press release, price gouging, pricing, protection, regulation, retailers, service plans, sign up, simplified, smartphone, Sprint, standard usage, stores, streamline, T-Mobile, telecom, terms, text and web, texting, trade, transparency, truth in advertising, unlimited plans, unlimited talk, upgrade, Verizon, web, wireless on December 17, 2011|
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If you haven’t been in the market for a cell phone recently, perhaps you missed it: AT&T’s Unlimited Talk, Text & Web GoPhone Plan, ushered in by a June 21, 2011 press release.
The FCC, FTC or state attorneys general really ought to look into AT&T for the marketing of their “unlimited web” mobile phone services. Without the benefit of a clear-and-obvious disclosure, AT&T’s prepaid smartphone customers, like their contract-bound counterparts, need to sign up for a separate data package, otherwise there is virtually no web to speak of under so-called unlimited talk, text and web GoPhone plans. A data plan will set consumers back $10 to $45 or $5 to $25 per month in additional fees depending on whether or not the service is under contract (postpaid) or prepaid (with prices subject to change, of course).
For consumers trying to keep their costs down in a tough economy, every dime counts. AT&T and its largest competitor, Verizon, would like us to think they are competitive in the prepaid market so they’ve crafted their own definition of the word “unlimited”. Verizon stipulates parenthetically that their unlimited prepaid option applies only to “basic phones”. By contrast, AT&T makes an implicit suggestion that web access is unlimited to any prepaid handset owner. The reality that it does not comes on top of the industry’s controversial practice of capping or throttling data access on the part of its heaviest “unlimited data” users. It is, in a nutshell, a case of what Sir Richard Branson calls “confusion marketing“.
AT&T titled their press release this past summer “Prepaid Calling Just Got Better: Nationwide Unlimited Talk, Text & Web Plan Now Available for $50”.
Two things stand out: 1) The news organizations and blogs that covered this new plan largely parroted the headline to perpetuate a patently false notion of the true cost of owning a modern prepaid phone, and 2) AT&T and its competitors need to abide by standard English usage in the use of the word “unlimited” when paired to “talk, text & web”. In fact, they have a legal obligation to abide by truth-in-advertising laws.
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Posted in Economics & Globalization, Politics & Public Policy, Technology & Science, tagged adjustment, ahead, alternative energy, alternatives, Amazon, American Dream, Baby Boomers, bailouts, banks, big box, Big Coal, Bowling Alone, budget, buy local, buying, buying decisions, cap and trade, careers, cars, Cash for Clunkers, chain stores, challengers, change, climate, commodity, communitarianism, communities, community, community centers, community purse, companies, compete, computers, concentration, consequences, constrain, consumer confidence, consumers, cookie cutter, crude, Dark Age, debt, debtor, demand, demographics, desertification, destinations, developments, digital, discontinued, discounters, diversity, domain, double dip recession, downsizing, e-commerce, e-tailers, ecommerce, economists, education, efficiency, Ellen Ruppel Shell, energy, entitlements, evolution, Federal, financial, forecast, fossil fuels, free shipping, frugal, fund, future, gains, gasoline, globalization, GNP, governments, Green, Greening, growth, hardware, here to stay, heritage, hikes, hindsight, horizon, income, increases, independence, inflation, infrastructure, innovation, internet shopping, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Goodell, jobless recovery, jobs, landscape, lifestyle, lingering, local, local color, long term, loss, losses, market forces, marketplace, Marshalls, money, moneysaver, mouse, myth, necessity, new normal, oases, oil, oil refineries, outlook, overstock, Perfect Storm, petro, pitfalls, population, postal service, prediction, price wars, prices, production, projection, public safety, purchases, question, rates, reality, red tag, refining, regulation, retail, retailers, revolution, risks, Robert B. Putnam, Ross, sales, scale back, sell, shift, shipping, shop, shop locally, shoppers, shopping, signs of life, Social Security, society, spend, stagnation, standard of living, state, suburbia, SUVs, TARP, tax base, tax revenues, tax-free, taxation, thrift, time, TJ Maxx, toll, too little too late, towns, trade, transport, travel, trends, unintended, United States, urban, vacuum, wages, web, web bargains, websites, welfare, workforce on March 22, 2010|
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For years “energy independence” has been the catch-all solution promoted by politicians, talk radio hosts, newspaper columnists and others who point out that the U.S. is short on oil refining capacity. Nonetheless, petroleum production facilities are not only in the process of downsizing in response to a weak economy, but permanently so the Los Angeles Times reports in “Oil companies look at permanent refinery cutbacks” [March 11, 2010].
The oil industry, which as recently as 2007 broke so many profit records that allegations of collusion and price-gouging surfaced, is singing a different tune: Limiting supply to increase sagging profit margins is the solution, analysts say, for losses induced by everything from fuel efficient cars to retiring baby boomers who no longer commute to and from work.
And to think: Just a few years ago SUVs, with their paltry ~13 mpg, were the rage from Coast to Coast. Could it be that Cash for Clunkers, unintentionally so, was a little too effective — or are oil industry insiders selling Americans up the river when they can least afford it? Whatever the case may be, nothing says Green like fuel-efficient automobiles and the beginnings of an alternative energy infrastructure. Even so, the picture the LAT paints is far from complete. The Perfect Storm of tightening supply, increasing commodity prices, rising taxes and further job losses looms on the horizon.
Hang on to your hat! The price of life is going up.
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