AT&T Takes A Lesson From Banks: Will Now Charge You For Not Using Enough Long Distance (original) (raw)

from the a-sign-of-things-to-come dept

Sometimes you wonder if there’s some sort of competition between airlines, banks and telcos as to who can come up with the more ridiculous “fees” to add. AT&T, which last we checked, was still trying to get a merger approved that it claims will benefit customers, has now decided to add a $2/month fee for people who don’t have a long-distance plan. In other words, pay more, for less! This comes on top of a whole series of other ways to limit consumer choice while increasing what they have to pay. As Broadband Reports notes:

AT&T imposed new usage caps on broadband users without making sure the meters work. They followed that up by cracking down on unofficial tetherers (imposing a fee for doing nothing while crippling smartphones) and then substantially jacking up the price of SMS service by killing off one of their most popular SMS plans.

But have no fear, once AT&T gets T-Mobile and there’s even less competition in the mobile space, we’re sure that such practices will only… er… increase.

Filed Under: fees, long distance, telcos
Companies: at&t, t-mobile