Putting a monetary value on the service loss can provide some insight. J.D. Power says the average cellphone plan is $141 a month, or around $4.70 a day. In theory, AT&T’s compensation is enough for someone who lost even 12 hours of service. However, not everyone was impacted the same by the outage. Some may not have noticed it at all. Others may have experienced a significant negative impact.
For example, some may have missed out on business opportunities because of the outage and lost money. AT&T also put some customers in the more serious situation of being unable to contact emergency services. AT&T CEO John Stankey’s letter to employees following the incident acknowledged this issue, saying, ”Outages sometimes have outsized impacts on some subscribers that may be greater than the face value of the credit.”
Even if $5 makes sense to some, there were still jokes going around that the cell company would simply raise everyone’s bill next month to recoup the money. This would be a form of cramming, where a cell company adds charges with vague words such as “service fee” or “membership” on a bill. Still, if you are eligible, the $5 credit will automatically get added to your AT&T account within two billing cycles, whether you think it’s fair or not.
