Is this even Legal? How to stop ATT....

[PrinceBandar]

Okay so for the last few years I have been in 500+ unit MDU with ATT as the reseller of Directv. But in the last year ATT has rolled out its UVERSE service. During this period they have relentlessly been pushing their Uverse service and neglecting their DTV customers and maintaining the hardware in the building. Here is a summary of some of the things AT&T has done:

* It used to be if you had a problem with your service going out you could call ATT home services and talk to a live person who had knowledge of the Mission Bay complex and others in San Francsico they covered. Now, when you call you get an answering machine and they call you back in one to two business days. Often times, they'll leave you a message right back and tell you "call us if your service is still out"--then you leave another message and they call you back and leave a message. No more live people to talk to.

* When stuff does go out, there is a 40-50 service charge they threaten you with for DTV service calls but not for Uverse.

* They have stopped maintaining the hardware that supports the DTV so we get a lot more hardware outages and problems. My first few years here I lost signal maybe once for a few hours. Now I lose signal 2-3 times a quarter.

* When you call ATT and actually get the chance to talk to a live person about service being out, they try and switch you to Uverse. "have you tried Uverse, its much better High Def. If you like High Def, try Uverse"

* I've actually had my service "accidently" disconnected by ATT UVerse reps twice in the last 4 months where I've lost service for 2-3 days. They claim its an accident but twice? The Uverse box is nowhere near the DTV box in our building. Why are Uverse guys even touching the DTV gear.

* Constant barrage of telemarking, door to door, mailings to switch to UVerse.

* I pay an extra $15 bucks or something for HD but since we only get 3 satellites, we are not getting the same channels that regular DTV subsribers get with the HD package. Thats kinda crappy right there...if you are gonna charge me for it, better deliver all the same channels.

* As frustrated as me and people in the whole complex are by this--(500+ units at least), as part of our agreement we can't switch to Comcast or some other provider. They basically have a lock on this building.

*ATT seems to be playing for time. They promised to Upgrade to MFH-2 in Q4, then January, then February, now it's delayed indefinintely. Could it be they are delaying not because they want to give people more time to switch to Uverse?

Right now after all this they have only gotten about 10% of the building to swtich to UVerse. Most people like DTV better because ts a more developed service and in a lot of ways, Uverse is really still in Beta form. Trying to force this down our throats though doesn't seem right or legal, especially when they have a monopoly- we can't switch to another provider even if we wanted to.

Is there any advice here on how we can appraoch the FCC to look into this. Isn't this illegal or something. Feels like there is nothing we can do here. Its like living in Soviet Russia. "you watch what we want you to watch--your service is good because we say it is--and you can't switch"....

Any advice/help here would be really appreciated.

[Chaos]

I believe that the FCC struck down all "Exclusive" contracts about a year ago. If you want Comcast or DirecTV directly, call them and explain your situation. They'll help you out.

[PrinceBandar]

I believe that the FCC struck down all "Exclusive" contracts about a year ago. If you want Comcast or DirecTV directly, call them and explain your situation. They'll help you out.

I don't think it applies here--how would Comcast even get into the building if ATT has the contract. As an indivudial I don't think I can break the contract the MDU has with AT&T. Unless there is some way for me to file something at the FCC and then they look at what AT&T is doing...

[Earl Bonovich]

IIRC: The building now has an "option" to have multiple contracts.
There is no guarantee that it HAS to have multiple offerings.

(The FCC rulling was that those firmst like COMCAST, AT&T, and DirecTV/Dish any company), can not put wording into their contracts that forces exclusivity.

I don't think it has any rulling that an individual unit, can choose the service of their choice.

As to the OP... my guess is there is little that you can do with it.
You can try to complain to your board of your association, but my guess is they are getting a very sweet deal from AT&T.

The pressure has to be put on from that level...

[PrinceBandar]

IIRC: The building now has an "option" to have multiple contracts.
There is no guarantee that it HAS to have multiple offerings.

(The FCC rulling was that those firmst like COMCAST, AT&T, and DirecTV/Dish any company), can not put wording into their contracts that forces exclusivity.

I don't think it has any rulling that an individual unit, can choose the service of their choice.

As to the OP... my guess is there is little that you can do with it.
You can try to complain to your board of your association, but my guess is they are getting a very sweet deal from AT&T.

The pressure has to be put on from that level...

This is what I thought--however, isn't there some kind of FCC rule against Robbing peter to pay paul. i.e. not servicing their DirectTV customers so they can basically force them to try their crappy Uverse? How come Directv isn't doing something about this? It hurts the D brand severely...I've had D before this and I know Directv doesn't go out this much.

[HD seeker]

Okay so for the last few years I have been in 500+ unit MDU with ATT as the reseller of Directv. But in the last year ATT has rolled out its UVERSE service. During this period they have relentlessly been pushing their Uverse service and neglecting their DTV customers and maintaining the hardware in the building. Here is a summary of some of the things AT&T has done:

* It used to be if you had a problem with your service going out you could call ATT home services and talk to a live person who had knowledge of the Mission Bay complex and others in San Francsico they covered. Now, when you call you get an answering machine and they call you back in one to two business days. Often times, they'll leave you a message right back and tell you "call us if your service is still out"--then you leave another message and they call you back and leave a message. No more live people to talk to.

* When stuff does go out, there is a 40-50 service charge they threaten you with for DTV service calls but not for Uverse.




* They have stopped maintaining the hardware that supports the DTV so we get a lot more hardware outages and problems. My first few years here I lost signal maybe once for a few hours. Now I lose signal 2-3 times a quarter.

* When you call ATT and actually get the chance to talk to a live person about service being out, they try and switch you to Uverse. "have you tried Uverse, its much better High Def. If you like High Def, try Uverse"

* I've actually had my service "accidently" disconnected by ATT UVerse reps twice in the last 4 months where I've lost service for 2-3 days. They claim its an accident but twice? The Uverse box is nowhere near the DTV box in our building. Why are Uverse guys even touching the DTV gear.

* Constant barrage of telemarking, door to door, mailings to switch to UVerse.

* I pay an extra $15 bucks or something for HD but since we only get 3 satellites, we are not getting the same channels that regular DTV subsribers get with the HD package. Thats kinda crappy right there...if you are gonna charge me for it, better deliver all the same channels.

* As frustrated as me and people in the whole complex are by this--(500+ units at least), as part of our agreement we can't switch to Comcast or some other provider. They basically have a lock on this building.

*ATT seems to be playing for time. They promised to Upgrade to MFH-2 in Q4, then January, then February, now it's delayed indefinintely. Could it be they are delaying not because they want to give people more time to switch to Uverse?

Right now after all this they have only gotten about 10% of the building to swtich to UVerse. Most people like DTV better because ts a more developed service and in a lot of ways, Uverse is really still in Beta form. Trying to force this down our throats though doesn't seem right or legal, especially when they have a monopoly- we can't switch to another provider even if we wanted to.

Is there any advice here on how we can appraoch the FCC to look into this. Isn't this illegal or something. Feels like there is nothing we can do here. Its like living in Soviet Russia. "you watch what we want you to watch--your service is good because we say it is--and you can't switch"....

Any advice/help here would be really appreciated.

Prince, thanks for your kind words. I said I wasn't going to post anymore but I feel I need to give you some info that could work. I talked to our attorneys today, Becker & Poliakoff, and he reminded me of the law we enjoy in FL. The Association by a majority vote can cancel ANY contract. As I understand it , any Association which enters into a contract of any type or any length with anyone can cancel just by having a quorum and vote on it to cancel. If the majority votes in favor the Association with notice can cancel the contract and then look for a different provider. Now, this law is in the books in FL and I do not know what and if there is such law in SFO and B&P is not well represented in SFO. Maybe you can check with an Association attorney and see if there is a similar law. We used this law many times here and gotten Condos out of Com* contract. Is somewhat of a hassle to get the majority to vote, but it works.
Hope this helped

[Earl Bonovich]

This is what I thought--however, isn't there some kind of FCC rule against Robbing peter to pay paul. i.e. not servicing their DirectTV customers so they can basically force them to try their crappy Uverse? How come Directv isn't doing something about this? It hurts the D brand severely...I've had D before this and I know Directv doesn't go out this much.

In the bigger picture... DirecTV probably can't do anything about it... Or is one MDU a big enough issue to do something about.

I have no idea how MDU contracts are written with regards to DirecTV... so depending on the payment structure it may have no major impact to DirecTV..

Don't know.

[woodybeetle]

As far as the FCC side of the house, you do have the option out of the contract. In October, the FCC declared that Cable companies (described as a carrier of CATV signal that crosses public right of way) and Telcos do not have the right to exclusivity contracts. Companies that deliver content via DBS are allowed those contracts though. Now in your concern, since it is a Telco that is reselling DBS signals, their contract for exclusivity is null and void at this time, at least until the last lawsuit is resolved. If you can get the local CATV provider to offer a better deal to the property on a bulk rate, the property can jump to it without an issue. Please keep in mind that this process can usually take upwards of 6 months for all the i's to be dotted and the t's to be crossed. Good luck and sorry to here you have AT&T.

[AntAltMike]

... I talked to our attorneys today, Becker & Poliakoff, and he reminded me of the law we enjoy in FL. The Association by a majority vote can cancel ANY contract. As I understand it , any Association which enters into a contract of any type or any length with anyone can cancel just by having a quorum and vote on it to cancel. If the majority votes in favor the Association with notice can cancel the contract and then look for a different provider. ...
There are surely a lot of wrinkles to that, since that "law", taken literally, would render any contract with an HOA unenforceable and thus no contracting party could ever install of furnish any capital improvements that are expected to be paid for by a stream of future revenue.

More likely, there may be laws that a contract entered into by a manager without being approved by the HOA can be canceled by the HOA, or that certain contracts entered into by the developer can be canceled, or that contracts that do not have a significant "exchange of consideration", like a franchise renewal agreement, can be cancellable.

In my market, Comcast snowed a condo manager, telling her it could not "upgrade" her building's 550 MHz analog system to digital unless it was given some kind of contractual guarantees regarding the use of the space in the oversized, 24" x 24" x 4" flush-mounted junction boxes at which the home run wires originate, meaning they have now effectively blocked out any company that might consider it worth their while to install their own hardline trunk alongside Comcast's to take advantage of the existing hone runs, which the building had installed at its own expense during construction before there was any such company as Comcast. My own "barracks lawyer" opinion is that the contract would be unenforceable because Comcast gave then nothing of significant value in furnishing the upgrade: they just swapped the 550 MHz amplifier boards for 862 MHz boards, and maybe fattened the trunk from .540" to .625".