Well thats the begining of the end of dial up!!!!

what's dial up?

As long as they keep expanding DSL range.

The boonies need some DSL attention still.

So, this "concession" does nothing but get new customers for the company.

Current customers do not benefit at all.

In America, broadband penatration floats around 30%, last statistic I read. Other countries, such has Canada and Korea, have a penetration near 90%. Why, you ask? Because those countries view building the backbones on which these services rely as a government, versus coperate, responsibility. The great irony is, the end user pays for the network either way.

That is a bunch of crap. Denying current customers access to the same price!? Way to screw over your loyal customers. What's to stop somebody from canceling their service for a couple weeks and then signing up again? This sounds like my cell phone company.

30% is far from accurate!

US Broadband Penetration Grows to 82.2% Among Active Internet Users - June 2007 Bandwidth Report
and 53% of all US households now subscribe to a broadband.


http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0706/

First off, everyone shouldn't think of att as att but rather as SBC. Anyone who thinks that they will actually be paying 10, 20, or even 30 are crazy. You will always be paying around 50 a month. They are liars, cheaters, and are very unethical in their business. I have had may instances of dealing with them and I tell you what they are terrible.

U.S. telecommuncations providers prefer to lobby for non-competitive agreements. Another wonderful example of a "free" market subverted by monopolistic competition.

You still have to keep that stupid home phone :(

There is nothing from stoping you from canseling
your service and than calling them back accouple
weeks later and getting the new rate. That's the
American way, i hope millions of customers do it.

Good point. It is $10/month for a slow connection. I currently downgraded from 4.0mb/s to 1.3mb/s via my cable service and it is barely sufficient. On top of that, you will have to pay the monthly phone bill. Not a good deal for me, as we use cell phone exclusively.

But I guess for land-line phone users, it is good news?

Guess this is only being offered to people outside the former bellsouth service area. Sort of funny that it is concession made in order to acquire bellsouth but not available in that area.

AT&T is a joke. Our society has come to the point where customer service is dealing with an automated system that has the customer wasting their time entering phone numbers, hitting #1 to hear response in English, #2 for Espanol. It's absolutely ridiculous. We live in America so speak English. Next you have to speak to someone in another country that can barely speak English or understand what your saying if it does not show up on a script. What the hell is happening here. I spent 45 minutes trying to get through to customer service only to be told that the office was closed. Absolutely the worst service I've ever received. Since AT&T merged with Bellsouth customer has gone down hill. I absolutely hate this company.

AT&T's DSL used to be very very bad, but lately they have cleaned up the service considerably, and added newer 2-wire routers that are actually quite good, especially for new users. At $15/month I recommend them highly. Unless you are a power user, then go cable, no questions.

Your complaints against AT&T is true of other companies. I received calls from companies who trying to offer me something but I could not understand what they were offering. I simply refused the offer since I had no idea what it was.

I had someone from India give me customer service while I live in Canada. They could barely speak English. Well we pay about $40 a month for high speed cable which is 300mb/s and we are moving to the country and they only have satellite internet there but it is only a 5 minute drive from the city. For satellite internet at the same speed it is over a $120 a month. Internet service and price sucks in North America.

I have a cellular card modem on my pc and it costs $60 a month but the speed is slow. I have a cable modem that costs about $44 per month and is fast when it works. With fast speeds come high prices.

That satellite link you mentioned just happens to have a data limit of 169mb continuous over 6-8hrs. It also has a latency issue as the signal takes awhile to go from your house to the satellite, back to their NOC and then back again to the satellite and your house. When I was there, it took an avg of 1.5sec round trip. That means that online play is essentially shut down for consoles and PCs, not to mention issues w/ VOIP and video conferencing.

Keep in mind that DSL has an outer limit of ~3-4miles depending on the actual point to point wiring, which is not necessarily going to be a straight line from their DSLAM to your home. The further you are, the more degraded the signal and the slower the speed.

I use DSL because I have no use for cable tv and need a fax line so it's all tied to a cheap home phone line. Also, after the last major hurricane, (Wilma), Comcast took 6weeks to come and fix my neighborhood. That means that if there's a bad storm I'd have no tv, no internet, no NOTHING! The flipside being that I had my phone and DSL before I had FPL's power, thankfully I have a generator.

I just installed this dsl offer at my in-laws in Biloxi, MS. She was a Bell South telphone customer and formerly used dial-up. She is a NEW DSL customer. $10/month...same price as her former dial-up. The offer was very difficult to sign up for..only available thru the web. She tried to get it via an 800 number and was referred to the web. The BASIC price of $10 was disclosed in the TERMS and CONDITIONS.
She's quite pleased with the service.

'Naked DSL': how to find and get the best price
By Michael Sorkin


Here's something you should know when you order DSL service from AT&T: The
company sells the same speed Internet service at $10, $15 and $20 per month.

— The $14.99 service is called Basic DSL and is the easiest to get. Anyone with
an AT&T landline phone can order it by phone or online.

— The $10 DSL service can be ordered only online, and hundreds of consumers
have had trouble signing up for this, the company's cheapest-ever DSL. AT&T
says it won't sell it to anyone who is already an AT&T Internet customer.

— The newest Internet service is called DSL Direct Basic and costs $19.95. It
can be ordered only through an AT&T call center, but some sales reps say they
have never heard of it.

There are four DSL Direct plans; the $19.95 version is the cheapest and
slowest. The Direct plans are the only ones AT&T will sell consumers without
AT&T landlines.

This type of service is known as "naked DSL."

Each DSL Direct plan costs at least $4 more per month than the same plan for
customers who have AT&T landline phones.

DSL users don't need a phone; Internet service works fine without one.

AT&T is free to charge the higher prices because Internet rates are unregulated.

As for the $10, $15 and $20 Internet plans described above, all are rated at
the same speed: up to 768 Kbps downstream. That's too slow for downloading
movies but may be fine for e-mailing or Internet surfing.

Why charge three prices for the same speed?

AT&T spokesman Andy Shaw says customers have different needs. It's not unusual,
he says, for companies to offer different customers different prices.

AT&T offered $10 DSL reluctantly. The company already was charging higher
prices for Internet service and had no incentive to offer it so cheaply.

As for naked DSL, AT&T wants to sell you as many services as possible:
landline, Internet, cell phone and video. That's called bundling. Naked lets
consumers avoid bundling by choosing only what they want.

But about a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission required AT&T to
offer the lower-cost services in exchange for approving its purchase of
BellSouth.

AT&T began quietly offering $10 DSL about midyear on its website. AT&T said it
would not provide a phone number or e-mail address for anyone needing help.

By the end of the year, the company also began offering naked DSL. It is
quickly gaining popularity with the growing number of computer users who have
traded landlines for cells.

The FCC is requiring AT&T to offer a naked DSL plan for less than $20. An AT&T
spokesman said last month that consumers shouldn't sign up for the $19.95
service online or by calling. He told them to go to company stores.

That advice turned out to be wrong, and Savvy received more than a dozen
complaints.

Mindy Lynn Thomason, a financial analyst from St. Charles, hurried to an AT&T
store, where "they told me I could only sign up by calling."

She called — and reached a sales rep who said he couldn't help her.

This week, AT&T's Shaw offered different advice: He said to sign up for the
$19.95 Direct Basic only through a company call center.

That $19.95 plan is AT&T's cheapest naked DSL service — and the only one for
which the company requires a 12-month contract. The other plans are
month-to-month.

AT&T's site says to call 1-800-288-2020 to sign up for its more expensive DSL
Direct plans ($23.99 to $38.99.) We reached a sales rep who said he knew
nothing about any such plans and transferred us to 1-800-264-0002.

As first reported by hearusnow.org on the Consumers Union website, AT&T is
asking callers seeking naked DSL to provide their AT&T landline phone number.
We were asked three times.

But consumers who want naked DSL won't have a landline — and don't want one.
That's why they want naked.

"They want to sell you a phone line," Thomason said after her experience.