MOST STUDENTS entering a new living or educational experience carry with them a certain optimism or naive. While attending an institution of higher education, the student may feel insulated from the terrors and pains of the so-called real world. In essence, the future seems wide open and full of all sorts of potential bounty. Yet, inevitably, something moves in to crush the student's positive outlook and to remind him of the fallible nature of mankind.
In my case, Sprint has quashed that sense of optimism. Having spoken with a few fellow Law students, I do not feel alone in this viewpoint.
In referring to Sprint, I do not mean the cellular provider or the long-distance carrier. In only its incarnation as a local telephone service provider has Sprint caused me great pain and immense suffering.
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Upon signing a lease to live in Charlottesville, I contacted Sprint to begin service. During the 30 minute conversation, in which I listened to someone with the verbal intonation of a goose discuss long distance options, I managed to sign up for a package plan that seemed like a good idea at the time. I changed my mind 20 minutes later and alerted Sprint of my change of heart.
As a spoiled American consumer accustomed to customer service representatives actually doing as they are asked, little did I expect that I would be charged by the telephone company under this stellar plan for the first five weeks of my living in Charlottesville. After receiving such a disconcerting bill and calling another perky service representative - possibly Anthony Robbins's understudy - I learned that nobody actually recorded my change of plan with Sprint. Furthermore, telephone companies bill their customers a month in advance for their local service. Thus, my first bill charged me for roughly eight weeks of a service plan I requested to be discontinued.
The customer service rep consoled me by changing my plan on this second attempt - better late than never, one may suppose - and assuring me that I would receive a partial refund in the next bill. When asked if I could simply subtract the unused plan from the amount paid, the telephone counselor informed me that service would be discontinued if I did not pay the current, incorrect bill in full.
The most recent bill arrived this past Thursday. My total refund for the most recent billing period was - seriously - $1.80. I plan to call the local carrier once again. I expect that this well-trained customer representative will assure me that the adjustment was appropriate and assure me that I should pay the bill if I should ever wish to talk to my family or my dog again.
Such are the problems of a monopolistic telecommunications system. All of God's children must answer to a single local phone service provider, and such fealty hits students harder than most consumers. Students usually do not have independent sources of income. Most live off some form of government-subsidized loan. Any standard fee or expense has a substantially regressive impact against most college students. College students would appreciate telephone companies that lowered their prices and appeared interested in keeping their customer base.
Local telephone providers that operate under a government-endorsed monopoly do not care too much about such things. With respect to local service, they provide two options: pay the bill or find another way to communicate.
In an effort to help consumers of all stripes, including college students, the appropriate governmental agencies would do well to consider opening local service up to competition. In the mixture of companies that would offer programs at varying degrees of cost and service, customers could decide how much a friendly, responsive company is worth. With Internet service providers, long distance carriers, and cell phone providers, customers already have the options to select services that best fit their needs and wants.
To state the obvious, that process of choosing a preferable company does not take place with the Sprints and Verizons of the world. Given the already-questionable existence of regressive taxes with slightly obscene names like the "Number portability surcharge" and the "Federal universal service fund," telephone customers should have the right to select a local carrier.
Students deserve to have that spark of happiness and trust in the inherent goodness of man returned to them. Competition should be brought to the local telephone market.
(Seth Wood's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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