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300-page iPhone bill

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File:IPhoneBill.png
Justine Ezarik showing the box containing her 300-page iPhone bill from AT&T in the YouTube video "IPHONE BILL"

A 300-page iPhone bill was the subject of a viral video by 23-year-old[1] Pittsburgh-area graphic designer, sketch comedian, and active Internet blogger Justine Ezarik, which quickly became an Internet meme.[2][3] The iPhone launch on June 29, 2007 in the United States was widely publicized, and a little more than a month later,[4] as early adopters started receiving their first monthly billing, stories of unexpected billing issues began to circulate in blogs and the technical press.[5] The video clip featuring a video blogger brought the voluminous bills to the attention of the mass media. She received her bill on Saturday August 11, 2007[6] and posted the one-minute video shot in a coffee shop by the following Monday.[7] In the first 10 days, the video was viewed more than 3 million times.[8][9]

Ezarik's video commentary focused on the unnecessary waste of paper billing. In the video she highlights the physical size of the bill, not the amount due. "I have an iPhone and I had to switch to AT&T. So, that's wonderful. Well, I got my first AT&T bill, right here in a box," she says at the start of the video.[7] The rest of the video, set to the music used in U.S. iPhone TV commercials, shows her opening the box and flipping through the pages, ending with the caption "Use e-billing. Save a forest."[5]

Her other comments also followed along the same lines. She told a USA Today reporter, "This is so silly, there's no reason they need to send you this much information."[3] Ezarik is a heavy user who typically sends several thousand text messages a month, which generated an exceptionally long bill – 300 pages that had to be sent in a box with postage charges of US$7.[10] In media interviews Ezarik did discuss the amount due, saying her first bill was for US$275.[3] She had no complaints about the iPhone itself: "I made the video only to point out the comical aspect of my phone bill being delivered in a box. As for the iPhone? I love it."[11]

Reaction

Company

AT&T Mobility, the mobile phone service provider for the iPhone, said, through spokesman Mark Siegel that the size of this bill was exceptional. "We're not sending lots of boxed bills to customers," he told the USA Today reporter. AT&T has options for detailed billing which produced the 300-page bill, summary billing which provides a basic account statement by mail, or online billing which is paperless. The AT&T network itemizes every data transfer when the handset connects to the network, including background transfers when the user checks e-mail or visits Web sites.[9] With the iPhone's many online functions, that creates a large number of entries on the detailed bill.[5] The billing is the same for all AT&T mobile users, but the popularity and functionality of the iPhone has given it new visibility. "It's no different than with any other bill for any other device or any other service that we offer", Siegel said.[5]

Later, on August 18, AT&T issued a statement saying: "Our customers have the option of receiving a bill that is detail-free. Also, we have for years encouraged our customers to switch to online billing because it is convenient, secure and environmentally friendly."[12] Then on August 22 AT&T sent the following text message to iPhone users: "AT&T free msg: We are simplifying your paper bill, removing itemized detail. To view all detail go to att.com/mywireless. Still need full paper bill? call 611."[13][9] "Looks like they may have got the message," Ezarik was quoted as saying in response to AT&T's action.[9] But company spokeswoman Lauren Garner said public reaction was not the reason for the company's switch to billing summaries rather than detailed billing, saying, "this was something we planned all along."[14]

Industry

AT&T may not have anticipated the downstream effects of iPhone customers' high data usage.[15][16] Adam Zawek, a spokesman at Boston-based InMobile.org, an online community for wireless executives, speculated that more than "business as usual" was involved with the large bills: "I suspect a messy combination of CRM strategy and billing system limitations," referring to customer relationship management (CRM), a comprehensive term referring to the way an organization interacts with customers. He said the detailed billing is probably intended to prevent expensive calls to customer-care centers.[17] Instead, AT&T call centers were flooded with complaints about the size of the bills.[18]

Rob Enderle, a Silicon Valley tech analyst, told ABC News the voluminous bills are just another problem with the iPhone, citing connection problems, customer support, coverage and "now bills that look like books." He said the large bills not only don't make financial sense, they annoy customers as well.[10] Internet reporter Dana Blankenhorn went further, stating that the size of the bill illustrated a problem with the telephone companies' "event based" or connection-oriented business model, and used it to argue for open spectrum in a radio frequency spectrum auction in the U.S. scheduled for 2008. He contrasted how in telephone billing every action is a separately billable event, while the Internet model is based on a flat fee for best effort delivery in connectionless mode transmission.[19]

Security

One security conscious commenter on the Engadget consumer electronics blog addressed the privacy implications of the oversize bills given the limitations of personal paper shredders, by speculating on whether it would me more practical to dispose of these large bills by burning them to protect personal information.[20]

Environmental

Enderle also echoed Ezarik environmental activism: "AT&T should get a new tagline -- use AT&T, kill a tree," he said.[10] The USA Today story was also titled "How many trees did your iPhone bill kill?" but did not attempt to answer the question.[3] According to blogger Muhammad Saleem, Apple’s aim to have 10 million iPhone users by the end of 2008 would require the logging of about 74,535 trees annually.[21][22]

Apple Inc., the developer and retailer for the iPhone, has positioned itself as an environmentally responsible company since 1990[23] and has adopted the green computing model in its new products, in particular their new iMac, so Apple customers may have been surprised by AT&T's legacy business practices.[24] One journalist reported in August 2007 that a million iPhone customers had complained to Apple about the size of the iPhone bills,[11] although it should be noted that Apple had not yet shipped a million iPhones as of September 2007.[25] Customers who read the entire bill found the following statement at the very end: "The New AT&T is going green."[26]

Other noted iPhone bills

  • Ben Kuchera, gaming editor for the technology-related website Ars Technica described a 34-page, doubled-sided bill.[5]
  • Charles Armstrong, founder of Sparklabs.com, a Tampa, Florida think tank received a 42-page bill totaling $95.[27]
  • Oak Harbor, Ohio, teacher Kelly Croy reported receiving a 52-page bill: "The biggest phone bill I've ever gotten in my life," he said.[3]
  • Alan Klein, a partner of a Macintosh consulting firm, called his bill "60 pages of nothingness"[26]
  • Henrico County, Virginia resident Steve Kimball received a 62-page bill.[28]
  • Mike Brophy, a software company owner near Seattle, posted a picture of a Maltese terrier sitting on his 127-page bill on his blog.[9][8]
  • A Government Computer News (GCN) columnist who contributes under the pen name R. Fink, reported in his "The Packet Rat" column that his wife received a 150-page boxed iPhone bill.[29]
  • A New York man filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T after receiving a $2,000 bill for data roaming charges after spending a week in Mexico.[30]
  • An iPhone user identified as "Pierre" was billed for $4190.76 after a trip to Europe. The bill was reduced to $900 with a retroactive plan change.[31]
  • Blogger Adam Aronson received the most expensive known bill so far: $5086.66.[32]

References

  1. ^ Lyons, Kim (2007-08-16). "The blog is on". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Tribune-Review Publishing Co. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Ezarik, 23, of Carnegie, made national news yesterday with a video of her flipping through her 300-page bill from AT&T -- mailed in a box -- for her new iPhone.
  2. ^ Keizer, Gregg (2007-08-16). "A 300-page iPhone Bill? : iPhone owners rail at AT&T for paper waste with overly detailed bills". Computerworld. PC World Communications. Retrieved 2007-08-19. One blogger, in fact, is in the middle of her 15 minutes of fame after posting a video that shows her unwrapping a 300-page AT&T bill.
  3. ^ a b c d e Graham, Jefferson (2007-08-15). "How many trees did your iPhone bill kill?". USA Today. Gannett. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Justine Ezarik, a Pittsburgh graphic designer and active Internet blogger, got her first bill on Saturday. She says it was so huge — 300 pages — it was delivered in a box.
  4. ^ "Opinion : Phone service". Daily News & Analysis, India. Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. 2007-08-27. Retrieved 2007-09-04. The new iPhone has been staggering users, first with its gizmo-good-looks, then with its functionality and now, about a month after it was launched, with its bills. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d e Ho, David (2007-08-15). "A 300-page iPhone bill? Too much information, users say". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Cox Newspapers. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Internet message boards and blogs are buzzing with talk of paper iPhone bills dozens and even hundreds of pages long. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ Ragan, Steve (2007-08-17). "Thirty thousand text messages equal a forest killing 300-page phone bill". Monsters and Critics. WotR Ltd. Retrieved 2007-08-19. The box arrived last Saturday and inside it contained her first bill after she purchased Apple's iPhone.
  7. ^ a b Stockey, Andrew (2007-08-15). "Pittsburgh Blogger's 300-Page iPhone Bill Mailed In Box". WTAE-TV News, Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Channel. Retrieved 2007-08-19. "I have an iPhone and I had to switch to AT&T. So, that's wonderful. Well, I got my first AT&T bill, right here in a box," she says in the video.
  8. ^ a b Richards, Jonathan (2007-08-23). "Dear iPhone owner: your 300-page bill". The Times. Times Newspapers Ltd. Retrieved 2007-08-23. Mike Brophy, on his blog, General Theory of RIAtivity, showed a picture of a Maltese terrier sitting on his 127-page iPhone bill.
  9. ^ a b c d e Hafner, Katie (2007-08-23). "AT&T's Overstuffed iPhone Bills Annoy Customers". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-23. Ms. Ezarik, 23, made a one-minute video that shows her flipping through the voluminous bill and posted it to YouTube and other video-sharing sites on Aug. 13. The video has since been viewed more than three million times.
  10. ^ a b c Phillips, Ashley (2007-08-14). "Bulky iPhone Bills Can Top 300 Pages". ABC News. Retrieved 2007-08-19. For a heavy user like Ezarik -- she typically sends 30,000 text messages a month -- an itemized bill was incredibly long and heavy. The postage on her bill was $7.
  11. ^ a b Littlejohn, Georgina (2007-08-25). "300-page iPhone Bill". Hispanic Business News. ProQuest Information and Learning Company. Retrieved 2007-09-04. One million iPhone customers across the US have filed complaints with manufacturer Apple about the size of their phone bills.
  12. ^ Brady, Jeff (2007-08-18). "Woman mocks 300-page bill-in-a-box". WFAA-TV news (Dallas/Fort Worth). Retrieved 2007-08-22. AT&T issued a statement today saying: 'Our customers have the option of receiving a bill that is detail-free. Also, we have for years encouraged our customers to switch to online billing because it is convenient, secure and environmentally friendly.' 
  13. ^ Cheng, Jacqui (2007-08-22). "AT&T says "No more 300-page iPhone bills"". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2007-08-22. Surely due to the recent flurry over massively large iPhone bills, AT&T has begun sending text messages to its iPhone users assuring them that 50, or 75, or 300+ page iPhone bills will no longer be sent to their houses (unless they want them).
  14. ^ Swett, Clint (2007-08-23). "Long iPhone bills go away". The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved 2007-08-23. But company spokeswoman Lauren Garner said the outcry had no bearing on AT&T's decision to send billing summaries rather than the full bills.
  15. ^ Quinn, Michelle (2007-08-23). "AT & T to keep iPhone bills brief". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-09-04. But the company hadn't anticipated how much iPhone users would do with their new gadget, which combines a cellphone, Web-surfing device and iPod.
  16. ^ McNevin, Greg (2007-08-29). "No More 300 Page Bills for iPhone Customers". Image and Data Manager, Australia. Knapp Communications. Retrieved 2007-09-04. In the end though, aside from racking up enormous postal charges for the company (up to US$10 per bill) and laying waste to an unknown number of trees, the incident illustrates how the rollout of new technology can collide with old automated billing services if appropriate steps aren't taken.
  17. ^ Thilmany, Jean (2007-08-17). "iPhone: The 800-Pound Gorilla Spawns a 300-Page Bill". Destination CRM. CRM Media. Retrieved 2007-08-19. "Fear of customer-care calls is a huge driver of everything because they give someone like AT&T two whammies," Zawek says.
  18. ^ "300-page iPhone bill that's as thick as a novel". The Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers Ltd. 2007-08-28. Retrieved 2007-09-04. AT&T Wireless, Apple's phone company partner, have been inundated with complaints from customers about the lengthy bills. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  19. ^ Blankenhorn, Dana. "The iPhone bill demonstrates need for open spectrum". ZDnet. CNET Networks. Retrieved 2007-08-19. It's the 300 page iPhone bill, in a box that cost $10 to ship, and nothing could better illustrate the need for open spectrum as we head into an election year. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  20. ^ Smit, Martina (2007-08-24). "iPhone bill is as thick as a novel". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-09-07. Another user remarks on the site engadget.com: 'I shred my bills when I am done with them. I am guessing a bonfire is more economical then buying an industrial sized shredder to deal with that pile of paper...'
  21. ^ Brenn, Max. "Massive AT&T iPhone Bills Considered Useless". eFluxMedia. Retrieved 2007-08-19. For these huge amounts of paper to be printed many trees have to be sacrificed and, according to blogger Muhammad Saleem, Apple's aim to have 10 million iPhone users by the end of 2008 would require the logging of about 74,535 trees annually.
  22. ^ Brown, Jorg (2007-08-17). "iPhone Billing and International Issues". TidBITS. Retrieved 2007-08-19. This is an idiotic waste of paper (blogger Muhammad Saleem estimated it at nearly 75,000 trees per year), but reportedly customers signing up after 10-Aug-07 will instead receive summary bills that basically just say how much you owe.
  23. ^ "Apple - Environment". Apple, Inc. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Apple recognizes its responsibility as a global citizen and is continually striving to reduce the environmental impact of the work we do and the products we create.
  24. ^ Hughes, Gina (2007-08-13). "First iPhone Bills Arriving—and They're Pretty Heavy : Gina Hughes : Yahoo! Tech". Yahoo! Tech. Yahoo!. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Apple has modified its products as it attempts to build greener computers, but I think they forgot to tell AT&T about their latest environmental efforts.
  25. ^ "Apple Sets iPhone Price at $399 for this Holiday Season" (Press release). Apple Inc. 2007-09-05. Retrieved 2007-09-05.
  26. ^ a b Barnett, Megan (2007-08-14). "Daily Brief: Little Phone, Big Bill". Portfolio.com. Conde Nast. Retrieved 2007-08-19. At the end of the bill, if anyone actually reads that far, the phone company has an announcement to make. "The New AT&T is going green."
  27. ^ Bora, Madhusmita (2007-08-16). "Business: iPhone bills land with a thump". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2007-08-19. AT&T took 42 pages to slap him with the $95 bill.
  28. ^ Kelley, Jeffrey (2007-08-16). "AT&T users, may find a big bill in the mail". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Henrico County resident Steve Kimball, for instance, received a 62-page bill this week.
  29. ^ Fink, R. (2007-08-27). "The Packet Rat : Commentary: The other shoe - measured by the ton - drops with the iPhone bill". Government Computer News (GCN). 105 Media, Inc. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 'OK, how many trees did they have to kill to send out the first month's bills?' the Rat half-growled, half-cackled as he contemplated the wood-pulp brick packed with 150 pages of hard copy. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  30. ^ Jones, K. C. (2007-08-30). "New York Man Sues Apple Over iPhone's Limitations Outside U.S." InformationWeek. CMP Technology. Retrieved 2007-09-04. He received a $2,000 bill due to data roaming charges after spending a week in Mexico, although Apple's iPhone Web site advertised that customers could access the Web and use e-mail as much as they wanted without incurring the charges, the lawsuit claims.
  31. ^ "Videos: And This Is Your $4190.76 iPhone Bill". The Consumerist. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Pleading with AT&T customer service got him retroactively on an international plan for $24.99 for 20mb, and $5 per mb thereafter. He used 205 mb total, so his new bill is $900.
  32. ^ "Tales of the weird: Apple's iPhone". Digital Arts (UK). IDG Network. 2007-08-17. Retrieved 2007-08-19. Another iPhone customer and blogger, Adam Aronson, received the world's largest bill so far: $5,086.66. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Blogs

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