Parchayi.com – Personal Finance Simplified

The new At&T lawsuit is not the first one it has filed against Verizon. In July At&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon for claiming their network to be “the best” and “the most reliable” 3G network. At the same time At&T themselves claimed “More Bars in More Places” (ha).

Now AT&T is suing Verizon for their “There’s a map for that ads”.  They recently also added another Verizon ad to the lawsuit which shows a map of AT&Ts 3G coverage. In all of Verrizon’s ads the map is clearly labeled as “3G coverage”. I’m sure At&T is worried about what will happen when it’s iPhone exclusivity ends? Amongst all carriers all over the world, AT&T is the only one that actually blocked features like MMS and tethering on launch day. Just goes to show how bad the state of AT&Ts network is and there are major city locations where a 30% dropped call rate is normal for AT&T.

Even now instead of improving 3G coverage faster (my iPhone toting buddies in Cville just recently got 3G, while I’ve been enjoying 3G on Alltel – now Verizon – for quite a while now), AT&T decides to waste money suing, bringing more attention to it’s deficiencies. It’s a wonder AT&T was not sued for it’s claims in the past of “fewest dropped calls”, “more bars”, “fastest 3g” etc. but I guess other companies were busy expanding their networks instead of suing, while AT&T was busy counting money from iPhone users with dropped calls, large bills and no 3G while wasting money on lawyers.

I was happy with Alltel (and their awesome customer service) and so far have no complaints with Verizon but I’ve never had to deal with their customer service and I hope I never have to.

I own no stock in either company and if you were considering investing in one of the above, you can easily tell which is the better choice.

AT&T = running scared that iPhone exclusivity ends and people will quit in droves thanks to crappy network + no Android/WebOS phones to compete in the near future.

VZW = introducing better phones all the time (Android phones now, WebOS coming soon), not crippling devices anymore, nationwide 3G.

Parchayi and me both have credit scores in the 800s, always pay all bills on time etc. and in spite of that we have been seeing notices from credit card companies every few months increasing rates and reducing benefits. It seems we are not alone and banks are just jerks who will do as they please before Obamas new Credit Card Act goes into effect in 2010. Have you noticed your rates go up too?

Also the credit card offers have completely dried up. In the last year I have also seen credit card companies canceling cards that I don’t use very often.

Amongst the cards that have slashed benefits is HSBC Cashback Platinum Mastercard. I had a card that had increasing benefits the more you use the card. It was 1% cash back upto 2500$ spending. Then 2% from $2500 – $5000. And 5% for all spending over $5000 in a year. Now it is just 1% no matter what. Also this was the card we used the most.

Amongst the cards that increased rates is Citibank Dividend Platinum Mastercard. They raised from 12.99 to 19.99% and that too after we started using the card more often since HSBC cut the cashback!

Amongst the cards that I had canceled is Washington Mutual Visa Platinum. The only reason I had the card was so I could get my credit score free each month. So I can’t complain about that one being cut. The bank got nothing from me.

This news is a couple of months old but it is worth reporting here because if you are an investor in movie studios, it might be time to quit. Universal, Warner and Fox are all showing serious signs of desperation by introducing delay windows for rental outlets like Redbox and Netflix before directly selling them movies to rent out. Warner even wants to stop wholesalers from selling discs to the rental outlets. That is screwing both the consumer and business partners at the same time!

Redbox is suing all three studios. Not everyone is that stupid though. Sony and Lionsgate both have signed distribution deals with Redbox.

Somehow I don’t understand the logic behind this. Studios claim that rentals are eating into DVD/Blu-Ray sales. Who are these people who will buy if they can’t rent for another few weeks? We renters already waited a long time between the theatrical release and the DVD. Do they think we can’t wait a few more weeks? What’s the point?

Also this will not stop Redbox or Netflix from renting the movies out. They will just be forced to buy them from retailers instead of distributors and wholesalers. Which sucks for them. So essentially the studios are just screwing the same people over that help them make revenues and are probably their biggest customers. I don’t know how they expect to continue like this.

As it is Hollywood has run out of ideas and we are getting more remakes, more sequels, more Broadway adaptations and fewer original ideas. Will pissing partners and fans off make more money for the studios?