Wireless Phone Carriers Held To (Texas) State Law 27
profet writes "The Dallas Court of Appeals found that wireless carriers must abide by state consumer protection and contract laws or face liability in state courts. A story on PR Newswire talks about AT&T's practice of 'misrepresenting' (read lying), and overbooking its network."
Said the AT&T spokesperson: (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, though - weren't there some estimates that by 2010 major corporations would be in a position to blackmail the government to the point of having martial rights and extratorritarial soverignty?
Re:Said the AT&T spokesperson: (Score:3, Funny)
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They already have that... (Score:2)
Overbooking? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Overbooking? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Overbooking? (Score:2)
But this is not an unexpected ruling where an airline was held to be liable and the case kept in state court where a flight attendant dropped a briefcase on a passenger's head. The court said that the this had nothing to do with the federally regulated area and not prempted by federal law.
Even worse... (Score:2, Funny)
Not possible to monitor over-booking (Score:4, Informative)
How carriers generally plan networks is that they take a Grade of Service of 2% or so. This means that 2% of the times someone attempts a call, the call won't be completed. Unless AT&T has drastically reduced the grade of service, there shouldn't be a perceptible difference between them and any other carrier.
Dimensioning a network is fairly complex. Carriers first assume an average Call Holding Time (90 seconds or thereabouts) and the average number of calls per day per subscriber (say 3). From this, they derive the total Erlang (one erlang is one channel used for one hour) required over an average 10 hour day, and dimension that as the peak loading on the network.
Of course, the actual dimensioning is considerably more complex. However, I doubt very much if any carrier would commit to a grade of service that they cannot meet.
Re:Not possible to monitor over-booking (Score:2, Interesting)
like most major corporations, at&t outsources the majority of its customer service and tech support jobs to (in their words) concentrate on the core business, but which actually translates into "pay the shlubs slave wages whilst we quietly destroy the company through shotty business practices and poor management.
The same way ISPs do. (Score:2)
And how can it be tested? The same way gas stations are tested for how much gas they offer. Have someone making calls and reporting the success of them. simple.
But its even simpler. supena the records of call droppage and congestion.
You seem to suggest its so complex we should just be happy with it. You should receive what you pay for, this stuff is not free you know.
I'm an AT&T customer... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is for AT&T's wireless service. Long distance, now that's another story... I had to drop them for another company after they bumped me to a higher rate...
Re:I'm an AT&T customer... (Score:1)
Re:I'm an AT&T customer... (Score:3, Informative)
It varies wildly depending on where you are when you're trying to place a call. The question isn't really whether the network is oversubscribed; the question is whether any given cell tower is oversubscribed at any given instant.
Try making a cell phone call at 5:30 pm in a major urban area. Chances are fair or better that your call won't go through the first time you dial, because the tower won't be able to handle it.
It aint the state, it's the telcos (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:TEST (Score:2)
Re:TEST (Score:1)
It does exactly what it says. Since you're a registered user, you start at score=1. Since you have good karma (or did, if the moderators notice us), you get a +1 bonus to 2. The checkbox gets rid of the +1 bonus.