Phone call provider takes AT&T, AAFES to task

[CommunityEditor]

The executive director of a nonprofit organization honored for its efforts to provide 1 million free minutes of phone calls for troops in the war zone used the ceremony at which he was feted to take on the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and AT&T.

John Harlow founded the Freedom Calls Foundation in late 2003 after hearing of a service member with a $7,000 phone bill.

Outraged by what he called “monopoly rates of 22 to 44 cents a minute,” Harlow said, he set out to find a better way. “Military families were paying $50 million to $100 million a year ... and I didn’t think that was right.”

Harlow’s comments came as he accepted a $15,000 award Sept. 5 from Newman’s Own, a program run by the food company owned by actor Paul Newman that honors innovative charitable efforts to support service members and their families.

Seated near Harlow on the stage was Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

AT&T spokeswoman Amanda Ray, contacted later, defended the company’s pricing, which is now 19 cents per minute from Iraq to the U.S.

“Various long-distance providers offer rates for calls placed from countries in the Middle East back to the U.S. at more than twice that rate,” she said. “Some charge as much as 10 times more.”

But Harlow contends he’s managed to cut his costs to just 5.6 cents per minute, including satellite time and other costs.

“This is for a network run from a living room in suburban New Jersey, in which every cost is incremental,” Harlow said. “AT&T already has massive infrastructure, and most costs for them are not incremental. They are just using existing capacity.”

Ray would not disclose AT&T’s costs per minute of international calling.

AT&T does not pocket the full cost for each phone card. A portion goes to AAFES, which passes on a share of its profits each year to the military services’ morale, welfare and recreation funds. In 2007, AAFES returned $9 million in dividends to Army MWR alone, just as a result of prepaid phone card sales.

But the use of prepaid phone cards has plummeted in Iraq, falling from a high of 12 million minutes in September 2007 to slightly more than 6 million minutes in July, said Craig Sewell, vice president of Resilian Communications, AAFES’ communications division.

The Army has increased its ability to offer free morale calls, and AAFES now offers high-speed Internet service — for a fee — right in troops’ living quarters. Those high-speed connections let troops make phone calls using their computers at virtually no cost.

“We’re seeing a lot of people taking advantage of this,” Sewell said. “Nineteen cents a minute strikes me as being reasonable,” said one congressional staffer familiar with the issue.

Because of gradually decreasing infrastructure costs, he said, “I’ll wager every year that goes by, AT&T is making more of a profit,” but added that the company’s initial investment in infrastructure should be taken into account in any such discussion.

“AT&T is a commercial entity,” he said.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has introduced an amendment to the 2009 defense authorization bill that would require a report on each contract for MWR telephone services in combat zones that has been entered into by the Defense Department after Jan. 28, 2008.

The amendment would require an assessment of whether the contract was awarded competitively and would give service members the ability to use phone cards from other phone companies.


Article: http://www.navytimes.com/money/finan...hones_091808w/

Why should any service member be required to pay to let their loved ones know that they are alive and still rolling? We are out there doing our jobs but a call home means a lot to those serving in the sand box. The fact that the phone companies are making a butt load of money off those serving there goes to show how much the greed is out there and goes to show who is more then willing to screw over those who serve.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why should any service member be required to pay to let their loved ones know that they are alive and still rolling? We are out there doing our jobs but a call home means a lot to those serving in the sand box. The fact that the phone companies are making a butt load of money off those serving there goes to show how much the greed is out there and goes to show who is more then willing to screw over those who serve.

You should be greatful that you can make a phone call at all. Previous service members before your time never received that luxury. Hand written letters that took months to even reach their love ones.
I don't know about some of you, but I for one am getting sick and tired of this new fighting generation wanting everthing handed to them!
Maybe it is time for someone to say enough of the whining and do the job you signed on the dotted line to do.
No one forced you to join the military, The draft has not been enforced since the Vietnam Era.

I'm in agreement that there are many luxuries nowadays that are taken for granted. But you also need to take into consideration the technological advances that have been made since the Vietnam Era. Comparing this situation to the two different time frames is almost like comparing apples to oranges. Small luxuries such as a 15 minute morale call are one of the small things that we can do to keep our forces going.

Let them charge what they want. You have 1 guy that had a $7000 phone bill? Did he just sit and talk on the phone and ignore the war? What does it take to get a phone card to call home for 20 minutes or so to tell everyone that you are fine and will probably get extended. And if you read the rest of it, they donated money back to the military so that you could e-mail your loved ones. And if your still complaining about higher rates, maybe they should take your combat pay and tax you for being over there. Just my 2cents.

It's our fighting forces. Considering what they go through each day, there definitely needs to be next to nothing calls for them.

TO say that we can not complain about businesses that charge too much for a service is crazy. I can make a call from my house to Puerto Rico for free. Why can't the existing infrastructure be used to allow for free calls? If there were a program in place to give the troops 1 hour per week, they would be greatful.

To the people from the old days that are sick and tired of troops taking advantage of what is placed in front of them, DO NOT forget, your generation is responsible for getting these luxuries out to the battlefield. You went through some crap and now it's fixed. In 20 years, when we fight another war, I will never take it out on the troops if they get better treatment than I did in Iraq. Sorry to say, but grow up.

I don't know how that one guy got a $7,000 phone bill....probably because he had an Iraqi /Iraqna cell phone and he used that to call home versus using the calling cards. I was in Iraq for 15 months, and I never had to buy even one phone card because so many people from back home donated them to our unit. We have had several people send hundreds of dollars' worth of phone cards just to my SECTION in my unit. I was stationed at one of the big FOBS though, maybe some of the smaller COPS did not have access to what I did.

[SUTHRNANGEL]

I can tell you from personal experience that my Husband, who is stationed in Afghanistan, had the $30.00 internet package and it was slower that the old dial up and my husband could never get online. Due to my health and a home break in, where I was badly beaten up, we had to take the $100.00 package and it constantly boots us off or freezes up and is a rip off. I think AFFES id taking full advantage of our service men and women. Shame on AFFES and the awful service they provide. Thank you for ROBBING our Soldiers for the outrageous rates you charge for your crappy internet!!! Families can not afford $100.00 a month just to TRY and use the sorry internet connection that AFFES rapes them for! This is NOT how our American Soldier's should be treated!

[SUTHRNANGEL]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You should be greatful that you can make a phone call at all. Previous service members before your time never received that luxury. Hand written letters that took months to even reach their love ones.
I don't know about some of you, but I for one am getting sick and tired of this new fighting generation wanting everthing handed to them!
Maybe it is time for someone to say enough of the whining and do the job you signed on the dotted line to do.
No one forced you to join the military, The draft has not been enforced since the Vietnam Era.

Everything is not handed to our Soldiers today. Technology has advanced and if they want the luxury of the services...BELEIVE me...they PAY out the behind for those services!