Saturday, February 25, 2012

These are some dark times

Lots of changes afoot, but I have bitten off more than I can chew. Either that or I did not plan this move to the East Coast very well. I think it is the latter, and like the Program Management book extols: "If you don't plan well, you will have to implement a number of workarounds." Hopefully the workarounds are not so many that they are my undoing.

This dark cloud will pass; it will take its toll, but it will pass. And then, I will be a stronger and better organized person for it. No other outcome makes sense...

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Fudging the numbers, or how AT&T does smart accounting

At Gigaom:
The 40 percent increase, in most cases, represents traffic AT&T has to absorb without collecting any incremental revenue. A customer on a 2 GB plan who increases his monthly usage from 1 GB to 1.4 GB doesn’t pay AT&T an additional dime. But a new subscriber represents an entirely new monthly revenue stream. If AT&T’s traffic grows from new subscribers, it has more money with which to add network capacity
So let's get this straight. AT&T promised 2GB to all the users that bought the 2GB plan. Now that these users have started using the data promised to them, AT&T is crying foul and complaining to the FCC about spectrum? How I read this, AT&T misrepresented its ability to service the needs of all its customers on the 2GB plan.

Hmm, let's go over the litany of promises made by AT&T to its customers:

Our nationwide network: Fail (more dead zones than Verizon)
Our nationwide 3G network: Epic fail; even metropolitan areas like NYC and Seattle don't have full 3G coverage
Our nationwide network is fast: Fail
Our nationwide network is reliable: Fail; you can have 4-bars of service with no connectivity
And now,
Our nationwide network can handle calls and data: FAIL

AT&T, keeping promises made to you, sometimes not always.