Recently, AT&T has been under fire for misleading its customers on several of its program’s pricing strategies. Additionally, the FTC just discovered that AT&T is also affecting how a customer’s data functions in order to reduce AT&T’s data costs.

AT&T has developed the promotion of the Unlimited Data plan which is supposed to charge a relatively low flat rate for all the data usage the customer needs in a month without charging them overages. This is a highly competitive tactics since other telecommunications providers say that there are too many costs associated with unlimited data problems.

Seems too good to be true? Well, the Federal Trade Commission says that it is. Based on FTC research, AT&T is being sued for mis-advertising the unlimited data plan. Apparently, once the customer gets to a certain level of data, the service slows up to 90% of the speed, making it impossible for customers to use the data quickly and forcing them to either wait for their connection or give up and stop using it. The barrier ensures that AT&T does not have to pay excess costs for data, essentially setting a technical limit on an unlimited plan. This technique is called throttling and it is not legal. It is illegal because AT&T is telling customers that they will get the same access to unlimited amounts of data, but really they are guilty of false advertising by making it impossible to use the data (even though technically they are providing unlimited data to the user).

Although this is frustrating for an individual AT&T user, it could be detrimental to businesses using AT&T services. Businesses rely on access to large amounts of mobile data to speak, present, and share information with clients. The unlimited data plan is enticing because business owners and corporations generally use a large amount of data. However, AT&T’s tactic ensures that business communication will slow and valuable partnerships could potentially end because of lack of response.

In many articles, I speak of how important it is to monitor costs. However, it is also important to know the company providing a service respects you and your business. Telecom providers often are not seen as partners to a business because they are a necessity. However, you need to remember that you are a client to them and their main focus should be to make their service work best for your business, not to make money. Make sure that those you form business relationships with are serving your best interests, or find another resource that wants to see their client’s succeed.

 

It is an odd question, but it is one that you are not asked enough. Let’s say you are walking down the street and you realize your money clip is missing. Thankfully your id and credit cards are all in your wallet, but you have lost about $400 (not including the value of your money clip). Are you upset? Of course you are! Question is, what are you upset about? Are you mad about losing the 6 or 7 sheets of green paper in that we define as currency? Probably not. You are most likely mad because you had made plans for that money to make your life better in some way.

Now here is another scenario; there is a hole in your pocket and you are continually losing about 2 dollars a day. You wear these pants every day (because apparently you don’t like to shop) and you never figure out that there is a hole. Does this cause the same reaction? I am sure many of you were upset but far less than in the first scenario. However, when you look at the numbers, you would lose $730 a year in the second scenario which is twice as much as that random large amount of money you dropped on your way to work in the first.

The negative reaction we have from quickly losing a large amount of money and slowly losing a small amount of money is human nature. We tend to notice large impacts and grow complacent to small losses. I argue, however, that we tend to lose more money on continual small losses because we ignore them. When we lose big, we tend to investigate and resolve the problem.

Why do we do this? Let’s go back to the scenarios listed above. Why did we not care about the pants having a hole in them? There are two reasons:

1.       People generally don’t pay attention to what they wear or use everyday

2.       Because we don’t think the money was enough to worry about it.

In many business scenarios, professionals let money go down the drain because they don’t understand or recognize there is a problem.  They simply let money filter out of their pockets because they figure the problem is not large enough to worry about. In the long run, some businesses let these scenarios get so bad that they end up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars! So please, for your business, go to a seamstress. Find an expert that can fix your issues and stop your from losing money. That way you can work confidently knowing that you are doing everything that you can for your company.

Limitless Technology ~ CRS

www.limitlesstechnology.com

407-330-4466