"will have some or all of their costs waived"...
Probably after adding a "'hurricane fee" to people's next monthly bill...
With Houston in the midst of severe flooding from Hurricane Harvey, telcos say they are so far maintaining service and will help with emergency efforts by waiving service costs. Mobile carriers AT&T, Verizon and T‑Mobile all say they will be providing residents of the areas hit hardest by the storm free calls and data service …
I sincerely doubt it, the negative PR alone wouldn't be worth it ... but I'm sure they will a) build it into the CODB, b) apply for mucho dinero from FEMA/DHS afterwards, c) use it as exhibit B or C at the next tariff inquiry (if Pai still bothers to have them), or d) all of the above
My thought exactly. The impressive move would have been a simple "will have all of their costs waived."
When they add "some or" I assume you'll be lucky to get $5 off your bill.
But hey, there will be lots of cash for post-storm self-congratulatory advertising!
I expect the "some or" is to prevent people from downloading loads of videos on their mobiles, thus swamping the network. It might be better to say something solid like "we'll provide up to 5GB of data for the 30 days to those in affected areas", but at least they're offering something.
If all of your worldly possessions are submerged, and your first thought is "Cool - I can download a ton of porn without it counting against my data limit!" then something might be messed up with your priorities.
But then I know a few people who would take advantage of the situation to torrent all of GoT...
(What, no icon for "Winter is coming"???)