

AT&T admits to slowing down the Motorola Atrix and HTC Inspire - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/03/att-admits-to-slowing-down-the-motorola-atrix-and-htc-inspire.ars

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potatolicious
> _"Carrier reps on Facebook have promised that AT &T will fix the problem
> with a software update to the phones in April after many complaints were
> made to the Better Business Bureau."_

I'm surprised that worked. I'm pretty sure the BBB is on par with AT&T in
terms of sheer evilness.

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MichaelApproved
Can you explain why you think the BBB is evil? Don't they simply supply a
center point for raising and addressing business issues?

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tptacek
They are, it is credibly alleged, pay-to-play; the overall tenor of what BBB
reports on you can be readily influenced by giving them money.

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mkr-hn
Being funded by the people you're supposed to keep account of is not the best
of strategies.

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phlux
Unless those you're keeping account of are willing to pay you....

This is how Congress works.

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estel
In what way? The people both pay for and keep account of their Government.

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phlux
Lobbyists.

How do you think laws are written so fast in response to events? Surely there
has not been a single law in a very long time that was actually, truly,
written by the sponsors in congress pushing for them.

They are written by aides and lobbyists.

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gamble
Exactly right. It's in practice impossible for politicians to draft
legislation themselves and still have the time and political capital to pass
it. In modern politics it's a mistake to see 'Senator Smith' as an independent
entity; he is more like the CEO of 'Senator Smith Inc.': leading, glad-
handling, and making high-level decisions - but the grunt-work of drafting
laws falls to lower-level members of the organization, lobbyists, or so-called
'think tanks'.

There is a great book on this subject by Paul Light, "The President's Agenda",
that goes into how even the president is usually forced to choose between pre-
existing options rather than draft his own initiatives.

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elbelcho
Once again, I feel it necessary to point out:

AT&T is the WORST rated US carrier by Consumer Reports
[http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/12/consumer...](http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/12/consumer-
reports-cell-phone-survey-att-worst.html)

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mickt
And these guys are trying to buy T-Mobile! If they want to be #1, then they
should try and do it with better service and planning of their infrastructure
instead of dicking around with their customers.

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MichaelApproved
Maybe there's more money in being #2 while you dick over your customers.

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daimyoyo
So they advertised speeds that the phone were incapable of achieving? That's
not just poor customer service, that's a violation of truth in advertising.
AT&T needs to be indicted by the doj and the FTC.

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wmf
The phones _will_ do 4G once AT&T enables it, so it's only half deceptive.

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jarin
Didn't AT&T already come out and say that their "4G" network is just a
rebranded and slightly upgraded version of their existing 3G network?

