AT&T Video Billing Service Might Help Prevent Bill Shock

AT&T has unleashed a "video bill" service that it says will make it easier than ever for wireless customers to understand their monthly charges.

The video bill is automatically generated and personalized with computer animation and voice narration, the carrier announced on its blog. It explains everything on your bill a line-by-line "visual and audio tour" of individual charges. It’s emailed to customers and available when they log on to their myAT&T account.

AT&T is the first U.S. wireless carrier to offer such a service. It was launched to several thousand customers in the Mountain Time Zone a few weeks ago. New AT&T customers will get video bills for their first and second-month bills; existing customers who change or upgrade their wireless accounts will also start getting them. Look for it to be deployed nationwide by early 2013.

The carrier says its U-verse customers have already had this feature available, and response has been positive. More than 85 percent have said they find the video bill to be helpful and almost 80 percent said the opened and watched the three-minute video from beginning to end.

AT&T says U-verse video bills have cut down on the number of calls coming into its contact centers regarding billing questions.