TE
科技回声
首页24小时热榜最新最佳问答展示工作
GitHubTwitter
首页

科技回声

基于 Next.js 构建的科技新闻平台,提供全球科技新闻和讨论内容。

GitHubTwitter

首页

首页最新最佳问答展示工作

资源链接

HackerNews API原版 HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 科技回声. 版权所有。

90-year-old man spends $10k on 2 ads in WSJ to tell AT&T CEO about slow internet

207 点作者 us0r超过 4 年前

24 条评论

shadeslayer_超过 4 年前
As someone from India, it is unbelievable that someone from California - an affluent state in a first-world country - has to actually pay for a 3.5Mbps connection in 2021. For context, I was paying around $11/mo for a 40Mbps connection in 2016.
评论 #26086422 未加载
评论 #26087003 未加载
评论 #26086492 未加载
评论 #26086435 未加载
评论 #26086474 未加载
评论 #26086887 未加载
评论 #26087018 未加载
评论 #26086734 未加载
评论 #26090004 未加载
评论 #26086488 未加载
评论 #26086412 未加载
评论 #26089244 未加载
评论 #26086419 未加载
arthurcolle超过 4 年前
This is really cool - I wrote a letter to Randall Stephenson in college back when tethering wasn&#x27;t built into phone plans. I wrote a parable of a man going to the baker, who has listed $100 for unlimited loaves of bread for a month. You buy it and walk outside. It&#x27;s a beautiful summer day, you can&#x27;t wait to use your 1 piece of unlimited bread. He sees you excitedly slicing the bread outside the bakery and putting some jam and butter right outside, admiring the pretty girls in summer dresses and you start to enjoy the moment.<p>Baker runs outside, steals the bread from your mouth and said &quot;NO, if you want to use the bread for any sort of bread-related artifacts (bread pudding, sandwiches, croutons) you must pay the mandatory 15 dollar surcharge for every bread artifact produced&quot; I was trying to relate it to tethering.<p>Anyways, the email is probably lost to the sands of time but I was so furious when this stuff was happening around 2011-2015 era. Wrote a solid 2000 words to Randall Stephenson. True asshole for how his reign oversaw the decline in quality in $T<p>Of course he retired last year with infinite money, so that&#x27;s cool. Good for him. He should take up baking bread.<p>Maybe break them up again? Haha jk, Bell Monopoly 3.0 will probably just be a shitty clone of Bell Monopoly 2.0 with a prettier UI, just like most modern software updates<p>EDIT: I don&#x27;t use AT&amp;T anymore, Google Fi is alright. Please if any Googlers are watching, tell the Fi team to make a button that lets me delete all voicemails in one action. Had to delete 170 voicemails one by one yesterday and even after a glass of ouzo or three under the belt, by the time I had 35 left I was ready to just jump off a bridge. No, instead they probably are re-re-redesigning Gmail again, which much like theta decay I can feel killing me in the future. Seriously, every time you redesign Gmail I have to explain to my father where the buttons are. Priorities G-Men, please.
评论 #26097970 未加载
tareqak超过 4 年前
I think there must be some demand in having like an OpenStreetMaps overlay for internet speeds.<p>I am in a position where my home in Canada has only Rogers cable Internet but the home across the small major street (1 lane each way without a divider) has fiber from the other duopoly provider Bell. I called Bell over the years and they just gave me the “we don’t have Internet in your area yet” even though their online lookup service via postal code said it did. Last year, I politely lost my temper and asked the customer service representative for an escalation since it had been 12 years that my family and I have been at this address so what is going on. I was put transferred twice while being put on hold each time and having to repeat my account each time. Eventually, I was transferred to someone in a department that actually had a reason, but it still required digging. Apparently, the builder of my family’s home here made a deal with Rogers to be the exclusive Internet provider.<p>I planned on calling the CRTC after (Canada’s FCC), but I got tired and I have been dealing with an unrelated medical issue.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=Canadian_Radio-television_and_Telecommunications_Commission" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=Canadian_Radio-te...</a><p>There are websites like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;broadbandnow.com&#x2F;California&#x2F;San-Francisco" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;broadbandnow.com&#x2F;California&#x2F;San-Francisco</a> that might have city-level and&#x2F;or postal code level information, but I want street-level information. As I said before in different comments related to Internet speeds, I would assume the migration to remote work would make having this information easily accessible when making a home-buying or renting decision.
评论 #26092007 未加载
评论 #26088869 未加载
评论 #26127674 未加载
评论 #26127663 未加载
monksy超过 4 年前
This will be me in 60 years .. minus the customer loyalty.<p>I&#x27;ve been thinking about doing that with billboards to remind people about the bad politicians that we&#x27;ve had right before elections.
评论 #26086381 未加载
gnrlst超过 4 年前
In Italy, a country often not &quot;idealistically&quot; represented when it comes to technology and infrastructure, I pay 27 EUR for 1 Gbps, uncapped, unlimited.
评论 #26087224 未加载
评论 #26087160 未加载
s1artibartfast超过 4 年前
Is this really a sad story about the state of the Competition between Internet providers? Is three Mbps the only service available, or is the user refusing to switch to some other faster service? If the former, what is stopping over the other providers from coming in to fill the obvious demand?
评论 #26086376 未加载
评论 #26090927 未加载
评论 #26086343 未加载
XargonEnder超过 4 年前
I agree, he is crazy, my kind of crazy. I hope it works out for him and his community.
评论 #26087448 未加载
rudyfink超过 4 年前
In case anyone else wanted to see the ad, this version has photos of them: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;allthatsinteresting.com&#x2F;aaron-epstein-att-ad" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;allthatsinteresting.com&#x2F;aaron-epstein-att-ad</a>
moonshinefe超过 4 年前
So he actually was citing Mbps? That&#x27;s impressive if at his age he&#x27;s aware of that sort of thing. I was also just thinking that it might be easy to balk at $10k for such a thing to most people, but if I were 90 and the internet was my main source of entertainment &#x2F; line to the outside world, it might be worth it to me to pay that. Good for him.
评论 #26087291 未加载
tomaszs超过 4 年前
I have bought once Facebook ads around Facebook headquarters, when my Instagram account got hacked and there was no way to get it back.<p>Maybe I should have use billboards...
alexashka超过 4 年前
There&#x27;s an excellent movie along the same lines, called &#x27;Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri&#x27;
评论 #26087232 未加载
floatingatoll超过 4 年前
Is this due to his city&#x2F;locality refusing to permit aboveground Internet distribution points, in order to protect the appearance of certain film industry neighborhoods? If so, AT&amp;T might be trying to avoid an extremely costly “underground on every block in the postal code” buildout.
评论 #26086941 未加载
ph2082超过 4 年前
Is AT&amp;T CEO not reachable by email directly?<p>Lot of companies have made CEO email available, so that consumers can reach them directly.<p>One of myfriend sent TATA motor&#x27;s CEO email detailing about how dealer did not honored commitment. Dealer got reprimanded. My friend got more amount than expected refund.
评论 #26087173 未加载
评论 #26086913 未加载
ryanmjacobs超过 4 年前
I&#x27;m 30 minutes north of Sacramento and can only get 2.5 Mbps from AT&amp;T :&#x2F;<p>Most of the time, I choose to use my cell phone as a hotspot in order to reliability video chat for work.<p>We are a 10 minute walk away from I-80, where there is plenty of underground fiber pulls...<p>We pay $60&#x2F;month... Yay, AT&amp;T!
评论 #26089318 未加载
BrandoElFollito超过 4 年前
I got fiber at home a few years ago (France). I was with one operator on ADSL before (Free) and asked their customer service when I can switch.<p>They told me to wait a week for the email which will tell me how to switch.<p>I waited, called and got fed up with them, asked Orange, they came the day after and I am with them since<p>I pay 45€ for 1000&#x2F;400, the reliability of the fiber is ok (I have to force the synchronization once every 2 months), their equipment is shitty and I installed my own router.<p>Now Free us calling because they finally decided to be a player in the area, after 2 or 3 years.<p>But at least we have competition because of the law (all ISPs must be able to use the existing fiber)
dehrmann超过 4 年前
&gt; I was paying for 3.5 Mbps., sometimes was only up to 1.5 Mbps<p>&gt; he had been hounding the company about the estimated time of arrival for their fiber optics<p>I suspect he has an ADSL connection and is far from the central office. Normally, I&#x27;d say the choices are wait for fiber, check with the cable company, or use 4&#x2F;5G. I&#x27;ll give him credit for running that ad, but I feel like <i>some</i> ISP would run fiber in an urban area for that kind of money. This feels just a little like complaining to AOL that your dialup is slow.
评论 #26090082 未加载
phtrivier超过 4 年前
Silly question for a missing piece of info: is the customer in this case <i>paying</i> for high speed internet (fiber I guess ?) and not receiving it, or is the provider just not selling a desired speed yet ?<p>To put it mindly, Internet Providers (as most 20th century telcos, I suppose) have a reputation for being untrustworthy, but in this case it&#x27;s not clear if it&#x27;s malvolence or incompetence.
评论 #26127607 未加载
评论 #26087728 未加载
cbg0超过 4 年前
With the advent of higher 4G coverage and now even 5G, are these types of wireless home internet connections not a real option in the US?
评论 #26086408 未加载
评论 #26086364 未加载
评论 #26086373 未加载
评论 #26086447 未加载
simonebrunozzi超过 4 年前
Reminds me of &quot;Old man yells at cloud&quot; [0].<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;knowyourmeme.com&#x2F;memes&#x2F;old-man-yells-at-cloud" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;knowyourmeme.com&#x2F;memes&#x2F;old-man-yells-at-cloud</a>
pabs3超过 4 年前
Sounds like he should start his own ISP. There was a great HN post a while back about someone in rural America that did that.
mastrsushi超过 4 年前
The man could switch to any other ISP but choses to spend $10k on this. Insanity
评论 #26127625 未加载
mensetmanusman超过 4 年前
The sad part is how cheap that is. No one reads the papers anymore.
nickik超过 4 年前
Starlink is for you.
评论 #26086621 未加载
baxtr超过 4 年前
As a side point: there is the adage that infrastructure is key for economic success. But then the internet connections I had in the states and the mobile phone connections were really, really awful. But still, major tech players are from the states. I think infrastructure is overrated.
评论 #26086464 未加载