AT&T Bait-And Switch DIRECTV Update: AT&T Comes Through

On Saturday, this blogger fired off a hot blog post about AT&T and how it appeared that the representatives were trying to turn me toward AT&T U-verse, when I just wanted high-speed Internet service.

Well, thanks for my use of new media, including Twitter, and a blog post deliberately coded to get the attention of AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, AT&T Public Relations saw and read my blog post, and a representative by the name of Rose called me - three times until she got a hold of me on the phone - on Saturday.

She apologized for my experience, and explained that AT&T U-verse wasn't only a system to replace DIRECTV; I can keep my DIRECTV service and still have high-speed Internet, provided under the AT&T U-Verse brand.

She also said she would make sure that my Wednesday appointment for installation was kept.

What this shows is the following:

1) That new media - or if you prefer "social media" - can and does eliminate the barriers between people and corporations.

2) That some companies do understand the power of social media, or what I call "social broadcasting", and have employees designated to respond to complaints that appear on, in this case, Google News and Twitter.

3) That anyone can build such a "social broadcasting" system as I have constructed.

Finally, this is, I must be honest to blog, the first positive experience I have had with AT&T. I was an iPhone user, until AT&T put the same $1,033.36 charge on my phone bill each month, said it was a mistake, then a whole new set of AT&T employees said it wasn't a mistake. I cut my contract.

That's right. The exact same charge, each month.

I even had a conference call with an AT&T rep and an American Express rep, just to get AMEX to ignore the charge each time it popped up.

That was three years ago.

And later that same year I had AT&T wireless service that never worked, and was the focus of a successful class action lawsuit.

I bought a Samsung T-Mobile phone because it looked like an iPhone, but without the AT&T hassle that came with it.

And before that, there was my experience with a defective Cingular cell phone, just before Cingular was consumed by AT&T:



So, with all of that bad history, I'm giving AT&T one more try. This time, I think it's going to work.

At least, I have faith.

Stay tuned.