All phone companies suck

[Finagle]

By their very nature, all phone companies are required to suck. My reasoning follows:

1. The phone company provides what is in essence a very simple service. You pick up the phone, dial, and someone on the other end picks up and you talk. Most people neither need nor want anything more than this.
2. All companies are under pressure from stockholders to increase profits.
3. In order to increase profits, phone companies must either add expensive features of marginal value (call waiting, call answering, etc..., most of which can be replaced by the purchase of an answering machine), increase charges, or reduce services.

The result is that whenever I get a phone bill I feel like I’m getting nibbled to death by rats.

 a. For years, my long distance carrier, AT&T, would add a totally gratuitous $3.00/month minimum charge to the bill. I have email. All my friends and family have email. I rarely make long distance calls. So they were getting $/year for not having to do anything.
 b. AT&T took over Mediaone cable. Within months, they raised their rates for by $5.00 month. They didn't even pretend that this was to defer costs. Their rate announcement did everything but say "We're charging you more because we can."
 c. I just got my latest cell phone bill. Cingular (who had a perfectly decent name, Cellular One, until they adopted the latest corporate fad of choosing a name that conveys no meaning and looks illiterate). I flipped over the bill to find out who I called and it said "Complete listing of call detail available for an additional $1.00 fee." Goddamned wombat molesters. What the hell am I paying my current fees for?

Not only am I getting charged small but infinitely annoying fees, but I can't walk to the mailbox without being beseeched to sign up for yet more expensive but somehow amazingly worthless features. Digital cable, computer telephony, various local calling plans that make no  sense... I DON"T FREAKING CARE! I pick up the phone and dial and the other person answers. That's all I care about. Leave me alone.

[MEBuckner]

We handle eighty-four billion calls a year. Serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth. We realize that every so often you can’t get an operator, for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn’t make.

We don’t care.

Watch this… [ she hits buttons maniacally ] …just lost Peoria. You see, this phone system consists of a multibillion-dollar matrix of space age technology that is so sophisticated, even we can’t handle it. But that’s your problem, isn’t it? Next time you complain about your phone service, why don’t you try using two Dixie cups with a string?

We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company. – Lily Thomlin, “The Phone Company”

Oh, and Finagle? That part about “I pick up the phone and dial and the other person answers”?

Not anymore, you won’t.

The Network Architecture and Infrastructure Surveillance Group
Data Customer Support Center
BellSouth Business Systems
(AKA “The Phone Company”)

[Ike_Witt]

Who is your phone provider? You do have options (depending on where you live). If you live in an area dominated by a baby bell, there is more likely than not, some competition. And yes, you are probably correct, AT&T was probably adding charges to your bill. I bet most of the people here have mystery chagres added to their bills every month. If your bill is within a certain range, most people don’t question it.