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AT&T Quietly Introduces $10/Month DSL

Posted by kdawson on Mon Jun 18, 2007 06:17 PM
from the not-what-i-call-broadband dept.
Communications The Internet
prostoalex writes "As part of the deal with the FCC to approve the AT&T/BellSouth merger, AT&T started selling, but not advertising, a $10-per-month DSL service in 22 states, AP has learned. 'The service provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching the speeds of the cheapest advertised AT&T plan, which costs $19.95 per month in the nine-state former BellSouth area and $14.99 in the 13 states covered by AT&T before the acquisition.'"
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  • And what's to stop them from... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bluemonq (812827) * on Monday June 18 2007, @06:23PM (#19558359)
    ...oversubscribing on a small amount of bandwidth and end up clipping real-world performance down to ISDN or dial-up levels on a regular basis?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because it's cable companies that do that. I've never heard of a DSL company throttling bandwidth on a regular basis.

    • Re:And what's to stop them from... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by latras (873952) on Monday June 18 2007, @08:25PM (#19559411)
      But at $10/month, if you can get even 128k, then that's a win. Since nowadays, dialup service is $9.95/mo. plus with not having to wait for the connection to establish, etc.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by dwater (72834)
        > plus with not having to wait for the connection to establish

        Eh? I have (A)DSL, and I have to wait a little while for it to 'connect'*...of course, I don't have to disconnect, but it does seem to do that on it's own every now and again (once a day?).

        *the DSL 'modem' has to connect, then the DHCP has to do it's stuff (do some DSL have permanent IP configs)?

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by dwater (72834)
            > You likely have a USB modem and this is your problem.

            Good Lord, no.

            I have a regular DSL modem with a RJ45/10BaseT socket (no USB). I have a Linksys WRT45G doing the DHCP...

            I'm not sure what they do to 'disconnect' me, but the connection goes 'dead' - as in no traffic. The modem still shows it is connected, mostly; though even that sometimes disconnects. The modem at my end has to connect to another modem at the other end, so all they have to do is disconnect the other end.

            Unless I'm very much mistaken.

  • If it were free it would still be overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by javakah (932230) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:27PM (#19558405)
    Dealing with AT&T is just not worth it for cheap Internet Service. Even if it were free, I don't think I'd go for it. Besides, if it goes anything like my experience getting phone service from them, that $10 will really be $25 a month with all the extra fees and surcharges they are sure to add on.

    • Other problems (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      DSL is available in my area, but not my prefix. So I'd have to change my phone number to get it. OK, I could probably deal with that, but then they'd charge me for the line change too. So I stay with cable for now. DSL would probably be cheaper per month, but I just hate dealing with the phone company soooo much....

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by gavink42 (1000674)
        Okay, working for a telco, I throw the bull$hit flag on this one! DSL is either available to your cable pair, or it's not. It's all based on your distance from the CO or SLC DSLAM.

        So, unless you're getting your dial tone FX'd in from another CO, as long as your pair is qualified as good (distance and not loaded), it doesn't matter what your phone number is! Heck, we even have people with ported numbers and DSL on their line!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hobo sapiens (893427)
      Oh, stop your kvetching. How on earth can you find fault with them for offering $10 a month DSL? Seriously?

      I use AT&T and it works fine. I never have any problems with the service nor the customer service. Actually, their customer service is way better than most companies I have dealt with.
      • I've been with AT&T DSL for about a month. There were lots of problems getting it installed (turns out the problem was that none of the four telephone lines to my apartment were physically hooked up, but only the last tech bothered to go into the building's phone closet to check). But now that it's on, it works well.

        I have a plethora of high-speed internet choices where I live. I went with AT&T because it offered twice the speed of Speakeasy and the other resellers at half the cost AND NO CONTRACT. That was the big problem I had with most of the resellers.

        Another option would have been Comcast, but the Comcast lady told me that cable internet doesn't work with Macs (which I know is a lie because I've had Roadrunner in the past). She said if I can't install Comcast's software on Windows XP I can't have internet.

        In the end, I'm paying around $25/month for three megabits from AT&T that work fine so far. Comcast would have been six megabits, but for $75/month.

        I have a lot of reasons to hate the beast that is Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T/Ameritech/MegaGiantConHugeCo [houstonarchitecture.info], but this time around I'm moderately pleased.
          • Funny. My AT&T heartache story has to do with moving, too.

            I moved from the third floor to the fourth floor of a builiding. AT&T wouldn't move my phone service insisting that there is no fourth floor in my building. AT&T claimed it was only a two-story building, which doesn't explain how it was able to hook up phone my original service on the third floor. AT&T refused to send someone out to verify the building had four stories. One hypothesis they proffered was that it was a new building. Nope. The building is older than AT&T.

            I ended up getting Roadrunner and Vonage since AT&T for some reason didn't want my money.

    • Re:If it were free it would still be overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tknd (979052) on Monday June 18 2007, @07:28PM (#19558995)

      I hate dealing with both the phone companies and the cable companies. I only have two options where I live: ATT or Timewarner. I think both companies are equally incompetent and the services are crap. For example ATT phone bills don't make much sense and have lots of additional charges. If there is a technical problem, they will charge you an arm and a leg. Meanwhile, Timewarner prices are too high and they will only offer lower rates as long as you purchase more services from them. Even then, the service you do get may have problems or have setup fees and miscellaneous tech charges associated with having some idiot tech come to your house just to flip a switch. (Side note: we all know that he's not really just flipping a switch, but rather intentionally making it so that only the cables connected to the TVs you asked are functional while the other cables are not!)

      And because both companies know they're so close to having a monopoly over the services, they do not put any effort into making the service better. Instead they offer less service at cheaper prices and increase the top end service (which was really yesterday's normal service), call it "Pro" and charge an arm and leg for it. At the end of the day, no matter who's charging you, you're still paying a premium for poor service.

      It's the new business strategy of America: don't hire engineers or researchers to improve your technology to have a superior product or service, instead just hire more marketers and business people to come up with new ways to sell the same crappy product.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by michrech (468134)
      Dealing with AT&T is just not worth it for cheap Internet Service. Even if it were free, I don't think I'd go for it. Besides, if it goes anything like my experience getting phone service from them, that $10 will really be $25 a month with all the extra fees and surcharges they are sure to add on.

      Funny you should mention the "extra fees".

      I moved into my house March 15'th. I called them (from my cell phone) to see how much "naked" DSL would run me a month. At the time, they had their $19.95 package (St
    • I was paying them $66 a month for phone service that would cut in and out all night, drop calls over and over and often not give me a dial tone. Yes, this was a land line. AT&T insisted I had bad wires in the house, even though I plugged my phone into the junction box outside and still heard all the static.

      Then they told me they were going to put a conduit under my patio and put in a new wire. I came home to find that they had tore up my lawn and not bother to fix it, sprayed orange spray paint all o
  • From TFA:

    Local phone service and a one-year contract are required.
    $10/mo my ass. You have to sign up for a POTS line with them, and I'm willing to bet that's going to be at least another $10, not counting all the taxes, fees, and bullshit they attach on to that. ("Cost recovery fee" my ass. Do they still have that one?) And if you already have AT&T for your POTS line, then you're screwed! You're not eligible for the price anyway.

    So let's review. It forces people who don't have a line with AT&T, and presumably don't want one, to get one -- upping the price. And people who already have service with them, can't get it.

    Nice work, FCC, nice work. This is a 'concession'? What did you have to give them? (Besides your bank account numbers, to deposit the cash.)

  • The article mentioned that it was difficult to locate information about the service. Does anyone know if the FCC has the power to not only force them to offer the plan, but also to make it (reasonably) accessible? I'm not talking about posting it on every billboard, but hey, it looks like they're banking on people not knowing about this service.

  • Worthless (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lord Ender (156273) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:35PM (#19558485) Homepage
    To get ATT DSL, you need to sign up for a 1 or 2 year contract, pay an installation fee, and buy their landline service.

    Because anybody with a clue is using VoIP by this point, these terms basically mean their $10 DSL costs $35 (=$10 for DSL + $25 for worthless phone service) PLUS the amortized cost of installation and the effective cost of an illiquid 1-2 year contract.

    Note: Last time I priced DSL, these were the requirements. They may have changed, and if so, feel free to correct me. Until T unbundles their services, though, I'm sticking to cable.

    • Re:Worthless (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jc42 (318812) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:48PM (#19558637) Homepage Journal
      Because anybody with a clue is using VoIP by this point, ...

      Except that many people (more every week) live in areas where the only ISP is the phone company, and they block user-level VoIP (while using it internally themselves).

      In such a situation, all the clues in the world won't get you what you want.

      It's the old "If you don't like it, you can move."

    • Re:Worthless (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wilk4 (632760) on Monday June 18 2007, @07:16PM (#19558891) Homepage

      "Because anybody with a clue is using VoIP by this point..."

      Kind of arrogant aren't you? (oh, yeah, this is /. ;-)

      Hate to tell you, but lots of people who have clues don't use VoIP and don't really want to, myself included. DSL for a regular phone line + net access works great, phones are cheap, and I have a working phone when the power goes out. (if you're close enough to the phone company office as I am anyway).

      So why do you think VoIP is so freakin' mandatory for the clue-full?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by loraksus (171574)
          When I was on Verizon DSL, the DSL service went down with power outages. Comcast seemed to go down if there was a power outage halfway around the city.
          A UPS isn't going to do shit for you in either of those cases unless you can sneak into the CO and plug your bank into it...
    • * shrugs *

      I use AT&T DSL, and it works great. I didn't pay any installation fee. And it doesn't cost nearly what cable does.

      Besides, your statement that anyone with a clue uses VOIP is a little ridiculous. Like all blanket statements, it's absolutely false :D

      Seriously, why do you say that? Personally, I prefer POTS to VOIP. If nothing else, POTS has proven reliability. It's certainly much simpler than VOIP. When it comes to essentials like telephone service, the simpler the better; it has fewer f

  • Random thought. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iamdrscience (541136) <michaelmtripp AT gmail DOT com> on Monday June 18 2007, @06:38PM (#19558523) Homepage
    I've had Comcast cable internet and it's like $60-70 a month around here. It was alright, but my big beef was the upload was only 40kB/s. How hard would it be to get like six of these lines and rig them up so that I have almost 100kB/s upload bandwidth for the same price?

    And then the real question, if they can offer me that service for that price, why the fuck won't anybody just sell me a cable or DSL line with more upload bandwidth? I would be willing to pay more.
    • You would probably need six separate phone lines, each with its own monthly costs.
    • You can't just bond six DSL lines like that and say you have 100 kb/s upload. Especially not with consumer products like that Netgear router with multiple WAN ports. To use the analogy, all you're doing is giving yourself six smaller tubes as opposed to one large tube. The difference is when you go to upload that 500mb file - you're only using one connection out of the six to do it.
  • They got more money.

  • Which states? (Score:5, Funny)

    by thc69 (98798) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:46PM (#19558601) Homepage Journal
    A quantity of states is provided in numeric form, but how about a list?

    • Re:Which states? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Conspiracy_Of_Doves (236787) on Monday June 18 2007, @07:37PM (#19559055)
      Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, California, Nevada, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee

  • Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by g0dsp33d (849253) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:49PM (#19558649)
    Its there for anyone signing up, as its on their page [bellsouth.com].

    I'm still stuck on crappy dialup or one way services. :(.
  • I don't care what it costs. If they restrict my ability to get to things on the internet, their service is worthless.

    -ted

  • For voip?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tmack (593755) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:53PM (#19558697) Homepage Journal
    FTFA:

    However, at 768 kbps, the download speed may be too low to appeal to the relatively sophisticated customers who use the Internet for phone calls

    I would be more concerned about the 128k upload than 768 down. I mean, you do want to be able to talk to the other party right? That being said, even 128k is enough for 2 POTs lines using standard compression (64k/DS0), though the VoIP packet overhead would probably force a higher compression to actually use 2 lines at the same time. It sounds nice and all, until you compare price/kbs against other countries and remind yourself again, that the US is still falling off the backend of the broadbandwagon. Its cheap, and ideal for people like my parents, who would only be downloading emails and the occasional video or picture page forwarded by me or other family members. The upstream is a bit weak compared to other offerings, but I wouldnt get this service if I were serious about gaming anyways (yes, you can play WoW over it, even over 56k modem, just not very well and if it gets into a complex scene, forget about it).

    Tm

    • G711 (Score:5, Informative)

      by thegameiam (671961) <thegameiam@yahoo.cPARISom minus city> on Monday June 18 2007, @07:55PM (#19559203) Homepage
      FYI, there are two VoIP codecs which are common: G711 is relatively uncompressed, and when Ethernet overheads are included, comes out to about 80K per stream (yes, much more than POTS). G729a is highly compressed, and runs about 8K. There is a significant MOS score difference between the two codecs, and many IP Telephony add-ons (lots of voice mail, for instance) requires G711.

      -David
  • Does anybody know if this will be eligible in Southern California?

    Does anybody know if this means I can finally download and upload torrents of UbuntuStudio and other FOSS without being throttled down to dial up and repeatedly disconnected?

    For the record, those of you who live near San Diego and have Cox communications probably know what I'm talking about.

  • What about? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At&t also quietly forgets to mention that all of your traffic is being spied on and sold privately. Enjoy!

  • Not a bad option (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Monday June 18 2007, @07:33PM (#19559033) Homepage Journal
    If your using dialup currently and its doing the trick, this isnt a bad option. it mght be a few bucks cheaper and a lot better.

    Sure, if you want to do gaming, or 'warez' it migt hurt, but how many average people really need more bandwidth then this? If its still around, I might even consider it when i drop my real broadband after the big squeeze starts across the industry and i cant use my line for what i want anyway. Why pay extra just to be throttled and filtered?

  • Cost in Chicago (Score:5, Informative)

    by djfake (977121) on Monday June 18 2007, @07:38PM (#19559063) Homepage
    I've had Ameritech or SBC or ATT DSL for over seven years now. Here's what it costs for May 2007: Telephone (excluding calls & Call-Waiting): $16.08, DSL Basic:$14.99. Tonight's line test: 1313kps download / 313kps upload. Other than the fact that the DSL charge will go up to $19.99 upon renewal, it's done nothing but get less expensive. My only grip is that on the rare occasion when I have to call customer service, I have to deal with some off-shore help center. I always demand level two support immediately.

  • AT&T's cherry picking service model (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kaaona (252061) on Monday June 18 2007, @09:57PM (#19560231)
    My home and residential neighborhood were built in 1973. A state highway with the highest traffic flow in Illinois (Il-159) passes just 200 yards from my home. The Metro East area across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, MO has a population of well over 200,000 yet since 1992 I've been unable to order anything but POTS from Illinois Bell, Ameritech, SBC, and now AT&T. "Not currently available" is the perennial status. The cold hard truth is that AT&T refuses to upgrade its physical plant from the classic copper-based exchange-centric service model. Oh, for years they've made widely-publicized promises of universal broadband service to the Illinois legislature, then refused to install the fiber-connected satellite equipment needed to expand DSL coverage beyond the 16,000-odd cable feet radius limits around their existing dial central offices (exchanges). A pin map shows that AT&T offers DSL service ONLY within those areas served by their existing copper cable plants, and they don't give a damn about investing in the infrastructure needed for universal service. They just keep milking that ol' copper cable plant for all it's worth.

    • Plenty fast for most people (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor (597831) on Monday June 18 2007, @06:36PM (#19558511)
      Sure 768k is underspeed for some purposes, but that's plenty fast for most people's day to day usage: web, email and a bit of youtube. 768k is a huge step up from dial up.
      • Shit, 768k down at $10/mo is 128k faster and $55 cheaper than what i have now.
        Greetings from interior Alaska.

        That said, i still get about 5GB downloaded a day (24hrs), so unless youre downloading DVD9s, the wait isnt too bad for most things.
        It hurts when I think of when I was in Japan, though. We had fibre running from the phone pole to the switch upstairs and enough bandwidth that I maxed out my concurrent usenet provider connection limit before the bandwidth ran out -and that was only about $30USD/mo

    • Re:cheap prices mean nothing... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HikingStick (878216) <z01riemer&hotmail,com> on Monday June 18 2007, @08:15PM (#19559341)

      What was that last article, US is now 24 in the list of nations for good broadband all over? Every year we keep dropping?
      While I take no exception to most of your observations, I must ask if the ranking to which you refer is a fair comparison. Compared to most nations of the world (excluding Russia), we have a huge geographic dispersion of our population. Sure, we may have greater population densities on the coasts (where broadband has become ubiquitous), but you cannot make an apples-to-apples comparison of the United States to most other countries in such rankings. Most European nations are only as large as some American states (no offense intended to European /.ers), bringing to bear a greater population density which makes a broader deployment easier in many regards.

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