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[edit] Background
The iPhone, Apple's initial entry into the mobile phone market, is a multi-function device.[11] The appeal of its feature set to technophiles,[12][13] and the iPod's wide popularity, generated significant interest even before the iPhone was officially announced on January 9, 2007.[14] Prior to the iPhone's debut in the United States market on June 29, over 11,000 related print articles had already been published.[15] Apple released the iPhone with a software "lock" so it could only be used on the AT&T Mobility network.[14] After purchase, buyers activated their iPhone's AT&T service contract using the Apple iTunes web page,[15] during which buyers had the ability to choose their billing preference; however, if no option was specified during activation, AT&T defaulted to detailed billing.[16] Detailed billing itemized every data transfer, including background traffic for e-mail, text messaging, and Web browsing.[8] This generated a large number of entries on the detailed bills.[5] After a month's time,[17] as early adopters started receiving their first monthly bills, stories of unusually large and expensive iPhone bills began to circulate. One of the first to attract wider attention was from Ben Kuchera, gaming editor for the technology-related website Ars Technica, who, in an August 11 blog posting, described his 34-sheet, doubled-sided bill and another 104 page bill sent to a colleague.[5][6] However, it was the release of Ezarik's video that acted as a catalyst to bring widespread media attention to this aspect of the iPhone story.[18] [edit] VideoEzarik, a 23-year-old[18] Pittsburgh-area graphic designer, sketch comedian, and blogger, received her 300-page bill on Saturday August 11, 2007,[19] and decided to use it as a prop for a self-produced video shot in a coffee shop.[20] She posted the edited one-minute clip to several popular Internet video hosting services by the following Monday.[20] In the first week, the video received over 500,000 total views on YouTube, 350,000 views on Revver, 500,000 views on Break.com and 1,100,000 views on Yahoo Video, as self-reported by the four popular internet video sites as of August 22. 
Portions of the video were also televised along with one-on-one interviews with Ezarik by several national and local news programs in the United States, including CNN,[21] Fox News Channel,[22] WTAE-TV,[20] and WPXI-TV.[23] ABC News Now also included independent reporting by an ABC News Radio reporter in their video interview.[24] In print media, the video's story was featured nationally in USA Today with independent reporting from major daily papers in New York, Los Angeles, several other large cities in the U.S., and in the United Kingdom, even though the iPhone was not available outside the U.S. market at the time. Ezarik's internet video commentary focused on the unnecessary waste of paper billing. In the video she highlights the physical size of the bill, not the amount due. "I have an iPhone and I had to switch to AT&T. So, that's wonderful. Well, I got my first AT&T bill, right here in a box," she says at the start of the video.[20] The rest of the video, set to the distinctive music used in American iPhone television commercials, shows her opening the box and flipping through the pages in fast motion.[25] The clip ends with the on-screen caption "Use e-billing. Save a forest."[5] Her other comments also followed along the same lines. In a blog posting, she wrote, "apparently, they give you a detailed transaction of every text message sent and received. Completely unnecessary."[2] She told the USA Today reporter, "This is so silly, there's no reason they need to send you this much information."[3] Ezarik is a heavy user who typically sends and receives tens of thousands of text messages a month, which generated an exceptionally long bill – 300 double-sided pages that had to be sent in a box with postage charges of US$7.[26] In media interviews Ezarik was asked the amount due, and answered that her first bill was for US$275.[3] She had no complaints about the iPhone itself, saying, "I made the video only to point out the comical aspect of my phone bill being delivered in a box. As for the iPhone? I love it."[27] [edit] Reaction[edit] CompanyAT&T Mobility, the mobile phone service provider for the iPhone, said through spokesman Mark Siegel that the size of this bill was exceptional. "We're not sending lots of boxed bills to customers," he told the USA Today reporter. The billing is the same for all AT&T mobile users, but the popularity and functionality of the iPhone has given it new visibility. "It's no different than with any other bill for any other device or any other service that we offer", Siegel said.[5] Later, on August 18, AT&T issued a statement saying: "Our customers have the option of receiving a bill that is detail-free. Also, we have for years encouraged our customers to switch to online billing because it is convenient, secure and environmentally friendly."[28] Then, on August 22, AT&T sent the following text message to iPhone users: "AT&T free msg: We are simplifying your paper bill, removing itemized detail. To view all detail go to att.com/mywireless. Still need full paper bill? call 611."[29][8] Ezarik was quoted as saying, "Looks like they may have got the message," in response to AT&T's action.[8] Company spokeswoman Lauren Garner, however, said public reaction was not the reason for the company's switch from detailed to summary billing, saying, "this was something we planned all along."[30][25] [edit] IndustryAT&T may not have anticipated the downstream effects of iPhone customers' high data usage.[9][31] Adam Zawek, a spokesman at Boston-based InMobile.org, an online community for wireless executives, speculated that more than "business as usual" was involved with the large bills: "I suspect a messy combination of CRM strategy and billing system limitations," referring to customer relationship management, a comprehensive term covering the way an organization interacts with customers. He said the detailed billing is probably intended to prevent expensive calls to customer-care centers.[32] Instead, AT&T call centers were flooded with complaints about the size of the bills.[33] Rob Enderle, a Silicon Valley tech analyst, told ABC News the voluminous bills are just another problem with the iPhone service, citing connection problems, customer support, coverage and "now bills that look like books." He said the large bills not only make no financial sense, they annoy customers as well.[26] Internet reporter Dana Blankenhorn went further, stating that the size of the bill illustrated a problem with the telephone companies' "event based" or connection-oriented business model, and used it to argue for open spectrum in a radio frequency spectrum auction in the U.S. scheduled for 2008. He contrasted how in telephone billing every action is a separately billable event, while the Internet model is based on a flat fee for best effort delivery in connectionless mode transmission.[34] [edit] EnvironmentalEnderle also echoed Ezarik environmental activism, saying, "AT&T should get a new tagline -- use AT&T, kill a tree."[26] The USA Today story was also titled "How many trees did your iPhone bill kill?" but did not attempt to answer the question.[3] According to blogger Muhammad Saleem, Apple’s aim to have 10 million iPhone users by the end of 2008 would require the logging of about 74,535 trees annually.[25][35][36] An editorial in The Blade, an independent newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, called the detailed billing "absurd and environmentally wasteful"[37] Apple Inc., the developer and retailer for the iPhone, has positioned itself as an environmentally responsible company since 1990,[38] and former U.S. Vice President, now environmental activist, Al Gore sits on its Board of directors.[39] The company has adopted the green computing model in its new products, in particular their new iMac, so Apple customers may have been surprised by AT&T's legacy business practices.[40][41] One journalist reported in August 2007 that one million iPhone customers had complained to Apple about the size of the iPhone bills,[27] although it should be noted that Apple had not yet shipped one million iPhones at the time.[42] Customers who read the entire bill found the following statement at the very end: "The New AT&T is going green."[40] [edit] SecurityOne security conscious commenter on the Engadget consumer electronics blog addressed the privacy implications of the oversize bills given the limitations of personal paper shredders, by speculating on whether it would be more practical to dispose of these large bills by burning them to protect personal information.[43] An editor for the Libertarian monthly Reason also speculated about the usefulness of the detailed information to government investigators.[44] The original Ars Technica blog posting, on the other hand, dismissed privacy concerns, showing that the detail pages do not contain sensitive information.[45] [edit] Other outsized iPhone billsPress accounts of this story also included related details and comments:
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