Earlier in the month, I wrote about the horse-trading underway to gain FCC approval for the AT&T (NYSE: T) merger with Bell South (NYSE: BLS).

In a letter to the FCC yesterday, AT&T makes a number of new commitments to try to win over the support of at least one of the two Democrat Commissioners who oppose approving the deal.

AT&T/BellSouth also commits that it will maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service. This commitment shall be satisfied by AT&T/BellSouth’s agreement not to provide or to sell to Internet content, application, or service providers, including those affiliated with AT&T/BellSouth, any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth’s wirelines broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination.

This is the portion of the commitment that people point to. However, there are conditions.

This commitment shall apply to AT&T/BellSouth’s wireline broadband Internet access service from the network side of the customer premise equipment up to and including the Internet Exchange Point closest to the customer’s premise, defined as the point of interconnection that is logically, temporally or physically closest to the customer’s premise where public or private Internet backbone networks freely exchange Internet packets.

This seems to permit AT&T flexibility within its own backbone.

This commitment does not apply to AT&T/BellSouth’s enterprise managed IP services, defined as services available only to enterprise customers 16 that are separate services from, and can be purchased without, AT&T/BellSouth’s wireline broadband Internet access service, including, but not limited to, virtual private network (VPN) services provided to enterprise customers. This commitment also does not apply to AT&T/BellSouth’s Internet Protocol television (IPTV) service. These exclusions shall not result in the privileging, degradation, or prioritization of packets transmitted or received by AT&T/BellSouth’s non-enterprise customers’ wireline broadband Internet access service from the network side of the customer premise equipment up to and including the Internet Exchange Point closest to the customer’s premise, as defined above.

Which seems to permit AT&T to offer its own TV services as a preference to over-the-top TV. It is also interesting that the commitment not to discriminate based on “source, ownership or destination” does not include “type of application.” Could the company degrade an entire class of service, such as over-the-top VoIP or peer-to-peer file exchange?

The other potential way for AT&T around the commitment is simply waiting two years or hoping for legislation that addresses network neutrality, possibly permitting carriers more flexibility.

This commitment shall sunset on the earlier of (1) two years from the Merger Closing Date, or (2) the effective date of any legislation enacted by Congress subsequent to the Merger Closing Date that substantially addresses “network neutrality” obligations of broadband Internet access providers, including, but not limited to, any legislation that substantially addresses the privileging, degradation, or prioritization of broadband Internet access traffic.

The concessions seem to be enough to please the “Save the Internet” crowd. Will it, together with the rest of the offer, be sufficient for the FCC holdouts?

I have a painfully low tolerance for lousy customer service.

I can accept and understand that problems occasionally happen with all services. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking telecom, TV, airlines, whatever. In my view, what distinguishes great companies is how they respond to these troubles.

Why is it so hard to find service excellence in consumer telecommunications services? Sometimes, it just seems telecom service providers are willing to annoy their customers, one at a time. I’d like to believe this is an unintended consequence, rather than a strategy – but there seems to be uniformity in the delivery of disappointment through mediocrity.

My latest experience is with my high speed internet service provider (you know who you are). In the spirit of the season, I will leave out the details, but customer service rep I280 and her boss, Greg, didn’t seem to want to hear that your auto-dialling announcement machine was broken and bothering me. Greg claimed he was as high up as escalation could go. If senior management wants to hear about it, call me – I have it documented. It will be fun to compare his notes to mine.

The report of the Telecom Policy Review panel called for a new Telecom Consumer Agency. Customer service and consumer issues will be advanced as market forces lead the regulation of the industry. I don’t think that these issues should necessarily get resolved by a government body. But I’d love to see a publication of comparative tracking reports, the way that US airlines are scored on various performance indicators. Track outages as a start, as I suggested 2 months ago.

That little bit of information would lead to more informed and more empowered consumers. Then we can talk about real market forces.

Among the top sources of hits on my blog over the holidays so far? The search terms “System”, “Access”, “Fees”.

The good news is that a lot of new people bought phones over the holidays. The bad news is that this search expression implies that users still aren’t clear or aren’t happy about these fees.

My position? I hate system access fees, as regular readers are aware, but don’t interpret that to mean that I oppose the fees. Huh? What does that mean, you ask?

I don’t think wireless carriers should be price regulated. In fact, I can even support carriers charging whatever the market can bear. The CRTC has determined, correctly, that wireless services are sufficiently competitive that price regulation is not necessary.

So what is the issue?

To me, it is a matter of fairness. I just think that the industry misleads consumers about the system access fees and my biggest concern is that carriers use the system access fee to change prices in the middle of a contract period.

No matter what the carriers say, system access fees are just another source of revenue. Let’s be clear: the system access fee has absolutely nothing to do with what the carriers say it is for. By the way, only Rogers explicitly clarifies on its website that the charge is not a “government charge”, as many people believe, including many of the sales agents and representatives for all of the carriers.

Bell says:

System Access Fee: The fee payable by you to cover the costs associated with operating and maintaining the Bell Mobility network, including costs for ongoing maintenance, new equipment installations and technology upgrades.

Telus says:

The System Access Fee covers a number of costs, including: spectrum acquisition and licensing charges, contribution charges to help subsidize residential telephone service in rural and remote areas, costs associated with area code changes, invoicing requirements for special needs clients, relay services (TDD) and related costs. The remainder, if any, goes towards the costs of operating TELUS Mobility’s national wireless networks, including new equipment and installations, ongoing maintenance and technology upgrades.

Rogers says:

The system access fee is charged to help cover the costs associated with the ongoing operation, maintenance and upgrading of the wireless network. The fee is not required by nor collected for the federal government or any of its agencies.

What this is saying is that the system access fee is just another way to recover the costs of doing business, the costs of goods sold. If I sign a contract for snow removal for the winter, my guy doesn’t get to raise the rate in the middle of January and add an extra fee to cover the cost of repairs or a new pick-up truck.

What can the carriers do about system access fees to make them more fair and thereby more palatable?

Either protect customers under contract from system access fee rate hikes or release them from their contractual obligations. That would be fair. That would make system access fees acceptable. When a customer signs up to a 3-year contract deal but finds out that a substantial part of their monthly fee has no price protection and can be changed on a whim, something is seriously wrong.

This is where governments should step in if the carriers won’t clean up their act on their own. It is a matter of consumer protection.

How about a New Year’s resolution from various players in the wireless industry to reform your ways? I hear there is a new sheriff coming to town.