August 28, 2020

To our valued SPARK Services Rural Internet Service customers,

One of the core principles behind the success of our business over the last several years is treating our customers fairly and like extended family, this includes being transparent and forthcoming when we feel that there is significant news to share with you concerning the products & services you obtain from us.

Five months ago, we noticed a new trend beginning to develop with the supplier of the LTE cellular airtime we use for our Rural Internet service, which is sourced from a national United States-based distributor. Concerning this trend, we started to notice changes in the offerings made to us for resale by our provider as we were being made aware of pending caps on available data, pending caps on maximum throughput, and the beginning of some limitations on how the services could be used. So, in our subscriber’s best interest we began to investigate additional sources to continue bringing non-throttled and non-capped airtime directly to you, our faithful customers.

To this end, we entered into direct contract negotiations with AT&T Wireless. These negotiations took a period of five months, however in the 3^rd week of July, 2020 SPARK signed a written contract with AT&T Wireless that included unlimited bandwidth & unlimited airtime for practically all users of our Rural Internet service, and provided upgraded modems to existing customers that were switched from existing accounts. 

We immediately noticed after signing the contract that AT&T Wireless was not moving to begin servicing the new agreement. Ultimately on July 24 we were verbally notified that AT&T Wireless had made a decision at an executive corporate level not to proceed forward with the servicing of our contract, including all access this contract provided to SPARK customers directly from AT&T. This was both quite disturbing and disappointing to us as we had negotiated in good faith in expectation of a positive outcome for our customers.

Based on information we had available to us immediately after July 24, we had understood that would be able to continue our existing LTE airtime program without additional restrictions from our service provider. However, on Thursday, August 20 we were made aware of a nationwide effort underway at AT&T Wireless to shut down all providers of LTE airtime that did not conform to all aspects of current AT&T Wireless guidelines for channel re-distribution. Our service provider informed us the same day that there were a number of new caps and limits that were mandated by AT&T Wireless in effect immediately that would result in both bandwidth and total data use caps on the service we would be able to offer going forward. 

Further, our provider has enacted a substantial price increase effective immediately on all AT&T services, this is based on a price increase that was applied to their services without prior notice by AT&T. We have no wish to gouge our customers, unfortunately we have no choice but to increase our prices for monthly service by the exact same amount that they were increased to us by our provider. This price increase currently in work does NOT increase the profit margin of SPARK in providing these services to you in any way, the increase is exclusively the result of actions by AT&T Wireless. We feel these changes, viewed in collective totality, constitute a corporate-directed concerted effort to drive end providers of rural LTE Internet services such as ourselves out of this market in order to compel you to deal directly with AT&T Wireless.

I want to reassure you that AT THIS TIME we still hold valid agreements with our airtime supplier and your SPARK Rural Internet services are not in danger of being disconnected. The program changes we are now rolling out to our subscriber base (price increases, data caps, bandwidth limitations) are not due to changes made voluntarily by either SPARK Services or our airtime service provider, but are the sole and complete responsibility of AT&T Wireless. We have no control of the end product ultimately provided to us, so our choice is to either comply fully with the new guidelines or terminate service.

Going forward we cannot at this time be totally assured that more changes will not be made in which we will be forced to further modify service to some or all of our current subscriber base. We are continuing in our efforts to assure long-term continuity of our Rural Internet services, but please note that this is an ongoing and dynamic effort and there is a degree of uncertainty in this process.

We encourage you, our customers to make your voices be heard! We think it is reprehensible for AT&T Wireless to be making major changes such as new data caps, bandwidth limitations, and major price increases to your service in the middle of a pandemic, with so many of our fellow citizens out of work and struggling to survive. The Internet is now a basic household tool that is necessary for interacting in today’s society on a number of levels. Large corporate profiteering is at an all-time high currently, with major corporations trampling on America’s small businesses. 

If you are as mad about these changes as we are, we suggest that you contact the following entities to let them know how you feel about AT&T’s business conduct and how it impacts you personally!

STOP DATA CAPS LINK

CONTACT YOUR STATE LEGISLATOR

I pledge that we will continue to keep you informed as to the progress of these efforts as well as to inform you in the timeliest manner possible of any further changes that will impact the LTE service to your modems obtained through SPARK Services. We understand that you chose SPARK Services as your wireless Internet provider for many reasons, and sincerely regret that business circumstances external to our company have forced these changes. We value your business and hope you will see fit to continue your service with us in the future.

Thank you,

Robert E. Allen Jr.

CEO

SPARK IT Services, LLC