{"id":1028,"date":"2006-03-10T23:41:28","date_gmt":"2006-03-10T23:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:09:38","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:09:38","slug":"att_ripping_off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1028","title":{"rendered":"AT&#038;T &#8211; Ripping Off The Troops?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that AT&#038;T is taking over the world again, maybe we can get them to stop ripping off the soldiers in Iraq. From the (cleverly named!) <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.tomevslin.com\/2006\/03\/att_is_ripping_.html\" target=\"browser\">Fractals of Change<\/a> blog (h\/t <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzmachine.com\/\" target=\"browser\">Jeff Jarvis<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>It\u2019s bad enough that they overcharge domestic customers but we have alternatives.  The soldiers don\u2019t because, according to The Prepaid Press, AT&#038;T has an EXCLUSIVE contract to put payphones in PBXes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, you ask, can\u2019t the soldiers get cheap calling cards to call the US? No! Because AT&#038;T is using (abusing!) its position as monopoly supplier of payphones to block the 800 numbers necessary to use nonAT&#038;T calling cards.<\/p>\n<p>\nThis blocking is illegal in the US but, AT&#038;T told our friend Gene Retske, editor of The Prepaid Press, the rules are different in Iraq.  Right.<\/p>\n<p>The soldiers could probably call cheaper if they used Iraqi pay phones.  But, assuming there are any working payphones on the streets of Iraq, it\u2019s still not a good idea for American soldiers to be standing on the corners talking on them.  That\u2019s why there are phones in PBXes.  Too bad the soldiers have to pay $.21\/minute to call home on them.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe wholesale rate for calls to the US is less than one cent a minute.  Skype charges about 1.5 cents RETAIL to call the US from anywhere in the world.  You can buy prepaid cards almost anywhere in the world to call the US for less than two cents a minute.  AT&#038;T charges soldiers in Iraq twenty-one cents.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can fill out a form to contact AT&#038;T <a href=\"http:\/\/att.sbc.com\/gen\/general?pid=1080&#038;cdvn=localize&#038;prod-snip=contact_us_bus_email\" target=\"browser\">here<\/a>. Give them your area code &#8211; or mine, 310, and under &#8220;Topic&#8221; select &#8216;Products and Services&#8217; and ask them if this is true, and if so let them know what you think of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that AT&#038;T charges the troops $0.21\/minute to call home from Iraq. Calling cards usable on streetcorner phone booths in Baghdad cost $0.05&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}