[seanp2k2]

All that sounds great and I agree with you 100%...however, since they're a public company, their first priority is to maximize profits, and that is exactly what they're doing here. Since USA citizens are so lazy that they let telco lobbyist groups write the laws and don't riot over them when they're passed by bought politicians, we have to deal with idiotic support as described above.

This is also the reason that the sales drones at Best Buy just read the product packaging when you ask them a question about it. Unskilled labor is cheap, and these days, almost all level 1 support is unskilled (think across industries, not just IT; IT still has some great lvl1 support if you look hard enough.)

[nitrogen]

I think it is unreasonable to expect the masses to "riot over" any issue that doesn't go their way. After all, the various industry associations didn't have to start any riots, blackout any web sites, or send hundreds of thousands of messages to get their laws passed. There must be a better way.

[JonWood]

Is causing your customers to think you're ripping them of, and making them look elsewhere for service actually maximising profit though?

Given the cost of acquiring a customer they should be bending over backwards to keep existing customers.

[ilmare]

Yes, since they know customers have nowhere else to go.