Shock: AT&T totally not OK with FCC saying it ripped off US schools AT&T has issued a rebuttal to the FCC's July complaint that it overcharged schools and libraries in Florida for internet service. The US telco giant said in a policy blog post that the FCC's allegations it violated of pricing rules for the federal E‑rate service program were "factually wrong." AT&T had been accused of …
Why? Should caterers supply free meals to schools and utility companies supply free electricity? Maybe you also believe that teachers should supply their services for free? An ISP is a commercial operation that must either make a profit or go bust. Therefore supplying free Internet to schools will mean that it would have to charge other customers more. Plus there is the fact that a company that is not making any money from its service has no incentive to supply a good quality service.
Nothing is free, we just call it free when we mean subsidized by others.
In the case of Internet access, why not have it subsidized for certain customers? We, many countries, already subsidize so much in so many ways that to speak out against subsidies is to call for a new global economic structure. Personally I have done just that but I do not want to start with education, healthcare, food or other basic necessities. We can dramatically expand subsidies in all those areas by reducing by a tiny fraction the subsidies we give to the financial and other industries.
I have seen first hand how it works when businesses supply "free" or cheap internet, and meals, even a utility that supplies "free" electricity to some. Basically those costs become claimable expenses and are passed on to paying customers, who almost never know a part of their bill is to cover "free" electricity for others. Personally I would require greater transparency but the systems are already in place to enable business to supply their services at reduced rates or even "free". IMO we should be using those systems to greater societal benefit. Better that than our current systems which benefit the few much more than the many.
Which is all fine and good on the surface, but, when you come down to defining a 'school', you may be looking for trouble.
Does a very small group of children meeting for religious services at a house of worship constitute a 'school'?
That is the core problem with loosely drawn statutes, their interpretation is in WHO does the interpretation.
A very recent case in point. In Flori-duh, state law requires students 'participate' in state assessment tests; but that statute does not explicitly define PARTICIPATE. Thus a student who takes the state test, breaks the seal, writes their name on the form, but answers no questions is considered to have participated. Recently, due to the state's third grade retention policies, this issue has been thrust in front of a judge.
So, be careful of what you wish for, the Law of Unintended Consequences may rear its ugly head.
Defining a school district in the USA is quite simple. Cable companies already provide free cable TV (restricted channel selection) to schools this is purely an extension of that. I think that some contributors on here don't know that cable companies in the US have to negotiate with local town boards/councils about providing services in an area and so this is frequently used as a sweetener.
In the UK, a school is registered with OFSTED as a school. Is there something similar in the US, or at state level within the US? Being registered with OFSTED gives you exemption from charging VAT on school fees. Most schools above nursery level are also registered as charities which also gives them that exemption which causes some confusion when people debate the effects of charity status on the tax they pay.
This one is FREE money to AT&T, the state taxes pay for it!
"...more flexible month to month service contracts."
More flexible for AT&T who can charge more for the same thing and soak up schools money. Or is it now that educational institutes are subject to the same bleed them dry corporate paradigm as private consumers?
AT&T can go on and on how capitalism should work via text book definitions, laws and "forms", but how AT&T is working capitalism is a complete different reality from the one of ethical.
Time Warner says hello.
Our school was has been systematically over billed by AT&T for years, for both phone and data. When my predecessors negotiated our contracts the AT&T Education reps pulled a bait-and-switch, promising a low rate and then at the 11th hour claiming we didn't qualify and then raising it. They also never offered to lower the rate, so when the telecoms contracts were handed to our department, we found we were paying more for a pair of T1s the we are currently paying for 200Mb from another provider. When we contacted them we originally negotiated a fiber hand-off and re-negotiated our voice service, with a pay for downtime SLA. The rep promised one rate in writing, then after being three months late turning up the link, (which they claimed didn't activate our SLA because "the line wasn't active yet") we started getting billed over a thousand dollars a month more than the negotiated rate.
When we contacted them we were met with months of the silent treatment, followed by months of stonewalling, peppered with threats to disconnect our service. We showed them that they had offered and agreed to a lower rate and then our rep stopped calling us back. I recommended we get legal involved, but admin shot the idea down.
Months passed, and we finally cornered another AT&T rep that said he would look into it, then told us our rep was no longer with the company. They never honored the agreed rate, and even after we moved all the phones to another vendor they tried to ignore the disconnect notice and kept trying to bill us. We had to fight for years, and then only to get a partial refund.
Looks like if we floated a lawsuit we might have gotten better results. I also recommend that people request a formal review of the 1st bill with their rep, and I also heartily recommend not using AT&T as a service provider. They have handed their commercial operations over to the same squad of idiots handling their residential DSL support.
Schools don't pay well. So, the people who sign these contracts are usually not the sharpest knife in the drawer. AT&T knows this; and any salesdroid worth his commission will also. And they will sign schools up for the most profitable plan in the book. Can't blame a shark for eating the slow fish.
But, you can write a state statute where vendors must present the same plan(s) to all school districts. If the school district specifically chooses not to use the most cost effective plan, and signs a contract to that effect, then the school board takes the responsibility.
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