It seems that AT&T is playing games with it’s new “Usage Billing” forumlas.  And it’s not pretty.

We spotted this article on Slashdot today.  One that our customers that utilize AT&T services should be very concerned with.  You see, AT&T is now billing for how much data you consume.  Which, on it’s face, sounds reasonable.  But in reality it has no basis in reality.  Slashdot user STOX‘ received his first AT&T bill that included usage billing and being a “high tech” guy, he went to check it out.  So, he measured exactly how much data (transmit and receive) he used with a reputable tool that looked at his router’s statistics to tell him the true numbers.  Comparing it to what AT&T was claiming he used there was a very large disparity.  A 20-30% disparity. 

So, he called AT&T and was informed that the way that AT&T computes data usage was “Proprietary”.  Which is a not so subtle way of telling us that they just plug in whatever number they want, tell us that we’ve used a certain amount of data, and bill for it.  With no way to tell if the billing is in error, accurate, or totally bogus.

Businesses and individuals  that utilize AT&T need to be very conscious about how they are being billed for data rate services.  If the ability to double check what your being billed for is hidden, how would you ever be able to know if your being billed accurately, fairly, honestly?

It takes both technical experience and a deep understanding of what just is and is not allowed to properly interpret telcom billing.  If your on AT&T it’s time to get ahold of OPENRSM to do a thorough review of the services you receive, and how your being billed for them so that you can know just what your getting and what the true costs are.