AT&T; Spam Filter Blocks Its Notice of Rate Increase

SEATTLE — AT&T; Broadband offered high-speed Internet users an e-mail filter to block spam--unwanted mass e-mail solicitations--and then discovered it also blocked the company’s notice of a rate increase.

Spokesman Steve Kipp acknowledged the problem Monday after hearing from customers who had read elsewhere that higher rates were on the way.

He said he didn’t know how many customers were affected.

“If there is a silver lining, it appears our spam filtering system works so well that it even deletes mass e-mails from our own company,” Kipp said.

Last week the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times reported that at least 64,000 Puget Sound-area customers with cable Internet links to AT&T; Broadband’s network would face rate increases of 8% to 15% in June.

The stories said customers were notified by e-mail, but some told the company they did not receive those notices.

The filtering problem was detected after some test e-mail messages were sent in a check of the system, and the notices will be re-sent once the glitch is fixed, Kipp said.