AT&T – the subject of hundreds of complaints from Connecticut residents – was fined $745,000 Wednesday by state public utility regulators for failing to meet service quality standards.
The standard requires the company to make repairs to at least 90 percent of out-of-service problems reported within a 24-hour period.
The decision was hailed by state Attorney General George Jepsen who said the fine “put one of the state’s largest telecommunications companies on notice that the safety of Connecticut’s citizens cannot be ignored.”
Jepsen praised a decision by the state Department of Public Utility Control, which imposed a $745,000 civil fine on AT&T for failing to meet a service quality standard.
“The out-of-service repair standard is very important, as it directly relates to public safety,” Jepsen said. “Many Connecticut citizens rely upon working telephone service as their lifeline to emergency services and their only connection to the outside world,” he said.
The DPUC had proposed a $1.2 million penalty against the company when it issued the notice of violation in May, 2010, an amount equal to $10,000 a month for every month in violation. After hearings, the regulators reduced the proposed penalty to $745,000 in their draft and in Wednesday’s final decision because of payments the company made in the form of refunds and offsets in customer rates, Jepsen’s office said.
Jepsen had argued that the $1.2 million penalty was warranted because the company had failed to meet the standard every year since it was adopted in 2001. The company also failed to file a corrective plan as required by the regulation.
“While I believe the full, $1.2 million penalty was warranted, the $745,000 fine sends a clear message to AT&T that it needs to improve its response to out-of-service customers.” Jepsen said. “The company’s responses in the future will be closely monitored.”
Assistant Attorneys General Michael C. Wertheimer and John S. Wright represented Jepsen in this case.
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My name is James Bruni, from Hamden, and I am writing to you because I am in dire need of your help! I read your article in the Sunday, Feb 6th business issue of the New Haven Register. This article told the story of Audrey from West Hartford and her many issues with her ATT service. This article spoke so clearly to myself and my fiancee. We are new home owners and we had our closing on the 28th of December (2010) and had ATT U-Verse installed on the 29th of December. We have been in our home since then and I have to say, there has’nt been a day that the service has worked properly. Our problem is the same as Audreys, however ours is a bit worse. We have had tech after tech come into our home, each one telling a different story. Our service freezes just like Audrey’s, however when our TV freezes, our phone and internet go out as well! This is more of an issue now since I had an alarm installed. Now that I have a home alarm, when the ATT VOIP freezes, my alarm goes off line as well.
The way ATT has handled this has been atrocious to say the least. It is almost as if they don’t care if I keep the service or not. After countless hours on hold with customer care and tech support, and literally 23 techs in my home alone, not counting techs who were sent to the lines outside my house, I have had it with how I have been treated as a customer. I am paying for the highest level of channels, when it come to the packages as well!
Help George! What should I do?
Thank you,
James Bruni
Easy. Just switch to your local cable company. They offer faster internet, less expensive phone lines & tv service that doesn’t go out during storms