AT&T, ICE, and My Internet
Why I May Leave QuantumFiber
Here we go again. My Internet Service Provider (ISP) was just sold to AT&T. I’m considering a boycott because of AT&T’s support of ICE. I’m going to do a bit of research here, but it’s likely that I’m going to switch.
Principles I Try To Live By
For those who read this Substack regularly, you know that I try to support businesses that do not do bad things, even when it’s inconvenient. One of my prior podcast episodes was about strikes and boycotts. Like many, Marsha and I chose not to buy a Tesla even though the technology impressed us. Once Elon Musk started supporting white supremacists and got too involved in politics, we opted out.
These choices are not perfect. We chose to boycott Spotify, and this decision involved some tradeoffs because of the limitations of Apple Music. Still, the idea is simple. When there is a choice, I should try to make it count.
This idea sits in a larger moment that feels off in so many ways, which I summarized last year before the #NoKings rally, Citizens have a role in our current environment, and companies do as well.
AT&T serves every community in the United States, including minorities and people with fewer resources. Where AT&T puts its weight matters. And, this is why they’re now on my boycott list.
The Bind With Big Tech and Media Power
There are tensions I cannot avoid. Every big tech company showed up to Trump’s inauguration, and I did not like that. I also cannot function in technology without Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon. That is the bind. I feel conflicted as a loyal Apple user when Tim Cook hands Trump a gold trophy. I feel conflicted as a loyal Amazon customer given what Jeff Bezos has done to the Washington Post, and most recently the outright bribery tied to a movie about Melania Trump. Living with contradictions is part of consumer life now. I do not have a clean way around it.
I also do not always follow the herd. I did not cancel Disney, Hulu, or ESPN over the issue with Jimmy Fallon and ABC. My concerns about media consolidation have been building for a while, and I wrote about that pressure on the free press, with the Paramount/Skydance offer for WarnerMedia. I do not want that kind of consolidation to swallow CNN. This is not a tidy ideology. It is a thread I follow about power, responsibility, and who shapes the public square.
Internet Providers and a Real Choice
Internet providers are one place where I can still act. We recently left Astound Broadband, formerly WaveG, for CenturyLink (now QuantumFiber) because Astound kept raising prices after expiring promotional deals. CenturyLink gave us steadier pricing. Now CenturyLink has spun out its QuantumFiber business and sold it to AT&T, who maintains significant ties to ICE. That turns stability into a different kind of problem. Staying put starts to feel like complicity.
I also have my own history with AT&T. In the past, they have been my landline long distance provider, my cell provider, and my Internet provider at different times, and I was happy to leave them in every instance. Despite their impressive history in technology, I also feel their attention to the customer slipped and kept slipping. Fortunately, long distance services on landlines stopped being a thing. As a cell provider, T-Mobile’s choice to call themselves the “un-carrier” felt different, and we have stayed with them for more than a decade. So that just left the Internet provider, for which we’ve just stayed away from AT&T (in favor of WaveG/Astound and CenturyLink/QuantumFiber) since moving out of the suburbs.
Uncertainties and What I Am Weighing Now
There are open questions. Astound might be in a terrible position with other causes that I disagree with as well. I still need to do some research. The other option in our building is Xfinity (Comcast) and we have our own history there. Our past negative experiences with Comcast even turned into a science project for our kids’ science fair, which is a whole other story. Moreover, it turns out they are on the list, too. (If you haven’t already, see Scott Galloway’s video on resistandunsubscribe.com.)
There is no saintly provider waiting around the corner.
Still I am leaning toward a QuantumFiber boycott. CenturyLink sold them to AT&T, and I do not want to underwrite AT&T (or Comcast) on ICE. I need to check Astound’s position, too. It is messy. When the choice is real, I would rather try to make it.
Disclaimer: After taking an AI course this past weekend, I used AI to help me write this article quickly in my own voice. I’ll likely continue to do this now that I’ve learned how to better utilize AI as a writing partner!
As someone with ~20 years working as a government contractor, it is likely that every major service provider has significant contracts with ICE. Typically, government contracts go to the lowest bidder, and margins are poorer than commercial work. I know some of this is fallacious as the allocation of fixed (and resulting marginal costs) are very subjective. Still, even with a firm fixed price contract (typically most risk to the contractor, also highest margin) are capped at 15%, with other contract types having lower caps. The government is supposed to perform audits to ensure that the actual fee is not excessive (not sure that is still done). If one wants to rationalize, while AT&T has an ICE contract (and it would not surprise me if more service providers do not have ICE contracts), AT&T is likely getting less revenue and profit from ICE than if they could use that capacity elsewhere.