The reason they don't just 'give' customers the phone is because they can still charge them!!! AT&T had been line item billing this thing for decades and people had no freaking idea it was on there. Its just a case of 'if they don't ask, we won't tell' and AT&T isn't about to give a sucker an even break.
Not true, they hired people to call and explain, they mailed notices. That's just your dislike of businesses showing, it's not accurate in this case I understand, i dislike big business too, but that's not what happened here.
*as i posted somewhere, I was one of those hired and that was my duty for a time. I have a way with talking to people, even strangers, they put me over that and i enjoyed the variety of it.