300-page iPhone bill
Encyclopedia
was the subject of a viral video
Viral video
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
by Justine Ezarik
Justine Ezarik
Justine Ezarik , is an American viral video comedian, and Internet personality. She is best known as iJustine, a lifecaster who communicates directly with her thousands of viewers on her Justin.tv channel, ijustine.tv. She has made more than 400 videos, including videos on such subjects as Lost and...
which quickly became an Internet meme
Internet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...
in August 2007.
Stories of unexpected billing issues began to circulate in blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s and the technical press after the Apple iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
's heavily advertised and anticipated release,
but this video clip
Video clip
Video clips are short clips of video, usually part of a longer recording. The term is also more loosely used to mean any short video less than the length of a traditional television program.- On the Internet :...
brought the voluminous bills to the attention of the mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
.
Ten days later, after the video had been viewed more than 3 million times on the Internet,
and had received international news coverage, AT&T sent iPhone users a text message outlining changes in its billing practices.
Two months later, the information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
magazine Computerworld
Computerworld
Computerworld is an IT magazine that provides information for senior IT leaders. It is published in many countries around the world under the same or similar names. Its publisher is International Data Group. Computerworld serves the needs of IT management via print and online...
included this event in its list of "Technology's 10 Most Mortifying Moments."
Background
Wireless network
Wireless network refers to any type of computer network that is not connected by cables of any kind. It is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and enterprise installations avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment...
. After purchase, buyers activated their iPhone's AT&T service contract using the Apple iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
software, during which buyers had the ability to choose their billing preference; however, if no option was specified during activation, AT&T defaulted to detailed billing.
Detailed billing itemized every data transfer, including background traffic for e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, text messaging
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
, and Web browsing
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, even when the phone is off. This generated a large number of entries on the detailed bills.
After a month's time,
as early adopters started receiving their first monthly bills, stories of unusually large and expensive iPhone bills began to circulate. The 300-page bill was exceptional, but other heavy users received 50- to 100-page bills.
One of the first to attract wider attention was from Ben Kuchera, gaming editor for the technology-related website Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...
, who, in an August 11 blog posting, described his 34-sheet, double-sided bill and another 104 page bill sent to a colleague,
writing, "while many of us have had smart-phones for some time, we’ve never seen a bill like this."
However, it was the release of Ezarik's video that acted as a catalyst to bring widespread media attention to this aspect of the iPhone story.
Video
Ezarik, then a 23-year-oldPittsburgh-area graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
, sketch comedian
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
, and blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger, received her 300-page bill on Saturday, August 11, 2007,
and decided to use it as a prop
Theatrical property
A theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set...
for a self-produced video shot in a coffee shop. She posted the edited one-minute clip to several popular Internet video hosting service
Video hosting service
A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video...
s by the following Monday. In the first week, the video received over 500,000 total views on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, 350,000 views on Revver
Revver
Revver is a video sharing website that hosts user-generated content. Revver attaches advertising to user-submitted video clips and originally offered to share ad revenue with the video creators. Videos could be displayed, downloaded and shared across the web in either Apple QuickTime or FLV format...
, 500,000 views on Break.com
Break.com
Break.com is a humor website founded in 1998 that features comedy videos, flash games, and pictures among other material. The chief executive officer of Break is Steve Boss...
and 1,100,000 views on Yahoo Video, as self-reported by the four popular internet video sites as of August 22. Total views were reported to exceed 8 million by the end of 2007, but Ezarik claimed she only earned US$2000 from the video, because only the views on Revver generate compensation for the creator.
Portions of the video were also televised along with one-on-one interviews with Ezarik by several national and local news programs in the United States, including CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
,
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
,
WTAE-TV
WTAE-TV
WTAE-TV is the ABC affiliated television station for Western Pennsylvania that is licensed to Pittsburgh, broadcasting on UHF channel 51 and identifying via PSIP as channel 4 . It also serves as an ABC affiliate for the Wheeling/Steubenville and Clarksburg/Weston, West Virginia market areas...
,
and WPXI-TV.
ABC News Now
ABC News Now
ABC News Now is an American 24-hour news channel offered via digital television, broadband and streaming video at ABCNews.com and on mobile phones. It delivers breaking news, headline news each half hour, and wide range of entertainment and lifestyle programs. The channel is currently available in...
also included independent reporting by an ABC News Radio
ABC News Radio
ABC News Radio is the radio service of ABC News, a division of the ABC Television Network. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Cumulus Media Networks, newscasts on the hour to its more than 2,000 affiliates...
reporter in their video interview. In print media, the video's story was featured nationally in USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
with independent reporting from major daily papers in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Los Angeles, several other large cities in the U.S., and in the United Kingdom, even though the iPhone was not available outside the U.S. market at the time.
Ezarik's internet video commentary focused on the unnecessary waste
Conservation ethic
Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...
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.
The rest of the video, set to the distinctive music used in American iPhone television commercials, shows her opening the box and flipping through the pages in fast motion. The clip ends with the on-screen caption "Use e-billing. Save a forest."
Her other comments also followed along the same lines. In a blog posting, she wrote, "apparently, they give you a detailed transaction of every text message sent and received. Completely unnecessary."
She told the USA Today reporter, "This is so silly, there's no reason they need to send you this much information." Ezarik is a heavy user who typically sends and receives tens of thousands of text messages a month, which generated an exceptionally long bill – 300 double-sided pages that had to be sent in a box with postage charges of US$7.
In media interviews, Ezarik was asked the amount due, and answered that her first bill was for US$275.
She had no complaints about the iPhone itself, saying, "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."
Reaction
Company
AT&T Mobility, the mobile phoneMobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
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. 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.
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."
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." Ezarik was quoted as saying, "Looks like they may have got the message", in response to AT&T's action. Company spokeswoman Lauren Garner, however, said public reaction was not the reason for the company's switch from detailed to summary billing, saying, "this was something we planned all along."
Industry
AT&T may not have anticipated the downstream effects of iPhone customers' high data usage. Adam Zawel, 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 managementCustomer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
, a comprehensive term covering the way an organization interacts with customers. He said the detailed billing is probably intended to prevent expensive calls to customer-care centers. Instead, AT&T call centers were flooded with complaints about the size of the bills.
Rob Enderle
Rob Enderle
Rob Enderle is an American technology analyst.Enderle has worked at several technology companies, including EMS Development Company, ROLM Systems and IBM, before becoming a technology analyst. He began his analyst career at Dataquest, before helping to launch GiGa Information Group...
, a Silicon Valley tech analyst, told ABC News the voluminous bills are just another problem with the iPhone service, citing connection problems, customer support, coverage and "now bills that look like books." He said the large bills not only make no financial sense, they annoy customers as well. Internet reporter Dana Blankenhorn went further, stating that the size of the bill illustrated a problem with the telephone companies
Telephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
' "event based" or connection-oriented
Connection-oriented
Connection-oriented communication is a data communication mode in telecommunications whereby the devices at the end points use a protocol to establish an end-to-end logical or physical connection before any data may be sent. In case of digital transmission, in-order delivery of a bit stream or...
business model
Business model
A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
, and used it to argue for open spectrum
Open spectrum
Open spectrum is a movement to get the Federal Communications Commission to provide more unlicensed, radio frequency spectrum that is available for use by all...
in a radio frequency
Radio frequency
Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...
spectrum auction
Spectrum auction
A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction format used, a spectrum auction can last from a single...
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
Best effort delivery
Best effort delivery describes a network service in which the network does not provide any guarantees that data is delivered or that a user is given a guaranteed quality of service level or a certain priority...
in connectionless mode transmission
Connectionless mode transmission
In packet switching networks, CL-mode or connectionless communication is a data transmission method in which each data packet carries information in a header record that contains a destination address sufficient to permit the independent delivery of the packet to its destination via the network.A...
.
Environmental
Enderle also echoed Ezarik's environmental activism, saying, "AT&T should get a new tagline — use AT&T, kill a tree."The USA Today story was also titled "How many trees did your iPhone bill kill?" 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, assuming an average 100 page monthly bill.
An editorial in The Blade
The Blade
The Blade may refer to:* The Blade , a 1995 martial arts film directed by Tsui Hark* The Blade , a 1997 album by British neo-folk band Sol Invictus* The Blade, a stage name of Brian Gamble, an American professional wrestler and martial artist...
, an independent newspaper in Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
, called the detailed billing "absurd and environmentally wasteful"
Apple Inc., the developer and retailer for the iPhone, has positioned itself as an environmentally responsible company since 1990, and former U.S. Vice President, now environmental activist, Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
sits on its board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
.
The company has adopted the green computing
Green computing
Green computing or green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT. In the article Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as "the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers,...
model in its new products, in particular their new iMac
IMac
The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms....
, so Apple customers may have been surprised by AT&T's legacy business practices. One million iPhone customers had reportedly complained to Apple about the size of the iPhone bills, although it should be noted that Apple had not yet shipped one million iPhones at the time. Customers who read the entire bill found the following statement at the very end: "The New AT&T is going green."
Security
One security conscious commenter on the EngadgetEngadget
Engadget is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. Though on appearance Engadget functions much like a blog and may be defined as such, much of its editorial content takes the form of an online magazine...
consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
blog addressed the privacy implications of the oversize bills given the limitations of personal paper shredder
Paper shredder
A paper shredder is a mechanical device used to cut paper into chad, typically either strips or fine particles. Government organizations, businesses, and private individuals use shredders to destroy private, confidential, or otherwise sensitive documents...
s, by speculating on whether it would be more practical to dispose of these large bills by burning them to protect personal information. An editor for the libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
monthly Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
also speculated about the usefulness of the detailed information to government investigators. The original Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...
blog posting, on the other hand, dismissed privacy concerns, showing that the detail pages do not contain sensitive information.
Other outsized iPhone bills
Press accounts of this story also included related details and comments:- The founder of a Tampa, FloridaTampa, FloridaTampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
think tankThink tankA think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
received a 42-page bill, and told a reporter, "it's ridiculous." - An Oak Harbor, OhioOak Harbor, OhioOak Harbor is a village in Ottawa County, Ohio, United States. Oak Harbor is 30 miles east of Toledo. The population was 2,841 at the 2000 census...
teacher called his 52-page bill "the biggest phone bill I've ever gotten in my life." - A partner of a MacintoshMacintoshThe Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
consulting firm called his bill "60 pages of nothingness" - A business consultant from VirginiaVirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
received a 62-page bill and asked a reporter, "Why would you send bills that large?" - A software company owner near Seattle, Washington posted on his blog a picture of a Maltese dog sitting on his 127-page bill spread out on the floor. and asked, "Has anyone on the Apple Environmental Team seen an AT&T bill?"
- "The Packet Rat" columnist wrote in Government Computer News that his wife received a 150-page boxed iPhone bill, and commented "OK, how many trees did they have to kill to send out the first month's bills?".
Video links
- "IPHONE BILL", Justine Ezarik's video, on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- Raw Interview Of Blogger Who Got 300-Page iPhone Bill from WTAE-TVWTAE-TVWTAE-TV is the ABC affiliated television station for Western Pennsylvania that is licensed to Pittsburgh, broadcasting on UHF channel 51 and identifying via PSIP as channel 4 . It also serves as an ABC affiliate for the Wheeling/Steubenville and Clarksburg/Weston, West Virginia market areas...
News, Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh Blogger's 300-Page iPhone Bill Mailed In Box news story from WTAE-TVWTAE-TVWTAE-TV is the ABC affiliated television station for Western Pennsylvania that is licensed to Pittsburgh, broadcasting on UHF channel 51 and identifying via PSIP as channel 4 . It also serves as an ABC affiliate for the Wheeling/Steubenville and Clarksburg/Weston, West Virginia market areas...
News - iBill Madness - Story about Justine (CBS 2 News) news coverage from WBBM-TVWBBM-TVWBBM-TV, virtual channel 2 , is the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, Illinois. WBBM-TV's main studios and offices are located in The Loop section of Chicago, as part of the development at Block 37, and its transmitter is atop the Willis Tower.-History:WBBM-TV traces its history...
ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
Blogs
- Justine Ezarik's blog entry regarding the August 13, 2007 iPhone bill