AT&T: Stop using the service you’re paying for, please

AT&T, who recently ranked last across 26 cities for customer satisfaction, has hinted at “incentives” to get customers who have the audacity to use the service they pay for to limit their unlimited data.

Oh, cry me a river. As an AT&T iPhone customer, I pay a lot for the service that serves as my sole phone. Most iPhone users pay at least $100 a month, without extras like unlimited texts. Over the past three months, nearly every call I make is cut off with a message of “call failed,” hours pass without data push updates- and reports are rampant on the internet of missed texts and voicemails, dropped calls and call failures. But apparently reliable unreliability isn’t enough of a disincentive for potential customers (current ones are often trapped by contract)- hints at charging a larger amount for the same sucky service seems to be on the docket:

“We’re going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage, so they don’t crowd out the customers on those same cell sites,” he said.

The company might consider a “pricing scheme that addresses the usage,” Mr. de la Vega said. But he said that would be determined by regulatory factors and industry competition, among other issues.

Indeed, if AT&T has proven anything this year, it’s that they excel at whining. They ran crying to the FCC when Google hurt their feelings, were exposed for encouraging employees to astroturf against net neutrality and got all pissy over the Verizon “there’s a map for that” ads. (They also introduced an app this week conceding their coverage sucks.) With their track record of acting hard done by while raking in cash after nabbing iPhone exclusivity, does anyone else think these “incentives” might be the type Tony Soprano would employ behind the Bing?