Throttling AT&T

Nothing gets me here faster than a hefty dose of Being Pissed! I will drop whatever I’m doing once I’ve decided to address and solve a problem and get the gut feeling I’m being jerked around –

When the moral outrage is so intense, I cannot look away, and so, I prepare for battle – intuitively – and begin the war.

So …
Here I am, on my third (or is it fourth?) call to AT&T about my Unlimited Data Plan, which they’ve decided to modify.

But I ask …
How can you modify the word unlimited?

It’s kind of like trying to modify the concept of Infinity.

Well, yeah.

We believe in the mathematical concept of Infinity – however, we’re just gonna tweak the word Infinity, so it no longer means Infinity. We’re gonna riddle it with holes, here and there, so it leaks! That way, we can guarantee that concept is meaningless.

Okay?

Oxymoron.
I think that’s the word I’m looking for here.

So …

You can have an Unlimited Data Plan with AT&T, but when you reach a certain amount of data usage, AT&T is gonna yank your speed to a crawl, so even though you have a state-of-the-art device, built to handle all your data needs, they’re just gonna take that technology and thumb their nose at it!

Nia-nia-nia-nia-nia-nia!
How d’ya like that!
And, oh, aren’t we clever?

UNLIMITED DATA DOES NOT MEAN UNLIMITED SPEED

Is this brilliance, or what?

But you are throttling my device!

That was what the fifth person(?) I spoke to (a supervisor) told me. Now I have no animosity towards her. She’s merely a soldier. She’s not part of the team that designed this disingenuous scheme to extract as much profit as they possibly could from their consumer base. They are the ones who blight the concept of Capitalism. It is Capitalism at its most extreme – the very edge of the spectrum, the Bipolar attributes of Capitalism – greed. It makes me wanna gag.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO REVIEW OUR SPEED OPTIMIZATION CLAUSE?

So that’s what they’re pushing now?
(Me) Howling with laughter.

(Profound silence on the other end -once the howling stops. Several seconds pass before I break the awkward silence.)

(Me) I’m sorry.
I just couldn’t help that.
Speed Optimization
(Me) I love it! No. I am not interested in reviewing that.

But I don’t give that much credence, since the contract with the consumer also states that AT&T is not obligated to provide the service they are selling and amassing a fortune from the consumer base that is guarding (Think, Hounds of Hell.) this non-service clause with their money, paying AT&T to provide a service they think they are not contractually obligated to provide – Why? Cause some dim-witted attorneys thought they were being clever?

Go figure.

Give me your moula and go fuck yourself!
(I didn’t actually say that. I just thought it. I am much too polite to use such foul language.)

And then, I had to issue a warning:
Are you attempting to engage me in a rhetorical challenge?

Well, we don’t have unlimited speed limits, she said, when we drive.

And a good thing we don’t, I said. There’s reason in that.

But that’s not any different from unlimited data limited data usage speed, she said.

Ah, but it is …
Because when I have a product designed for speed and I have to contract with a provider to service that product and that provider pulls the strings –

We’re not pulling any strings, she said.

Oh, yes, you are! I said.
Because I pay for a product that is developed for that device – Netflix – and I cannot watch any movies because you have yanked what you were contractually bound by, and now are trying to rationalize modification of that contract by redressing a word, so it no longer means what it meant, and therefore, now means nothing – is meaningless – to profit handsomely from your unwitting cunning – not you personally, of course. You merely work for the corporation.

See what I mean?

No, I can’t say I agree with that.

No need to worry about that.

Well, I’d like to let you know we will be modifying our terms in early 2015 on this very issue.

I am so glad to hear that!

But I suspect since AT&T had to form a special division to address that very issue, since the FTC is now suing AT&T because of that very issue, may have something to do with, ahem, that development.

And that’s what I call …
Serendipity.