Binding services
Think you can use SBC for DSL, and use someone else for local phone service? Think again. In “Some Lose DSL Service With Switch of Local Service,” Wall Street Journal reports that SBC has been disconnecting customers’ DSL lines when they transfer local phone serivce:
Many other DSL customers have had similar trouble. MCI last year lost about 100,000 potential local-service customers when the company was told by the Bells that these customers would lose their DSL connection if they made the switch, says James Lewis, MCI’s senior vice president for state public policy. Now, MCI doesn’t even try to sell its local service to such customers, Mr. Lewis says.
Some state regulators, rival carriers and consumers see the policy by SBC and other Bell companies as a hardball tactic to keep customers from defecting. “This is the same type of anticompetitive tactic they’ve used to put competitors out of business since day one,” says Chris Murray, legislative counsel at Consumers Union, the advocacy group that publishes Consumer Reports.
Playing hardball to “keep” us? They’ll have to play a lot harder and faster to keep ahead of the bad attitude they’re generating among their “consumers.”