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Communications The Internet

AT&T Quietly Introduces $10/Month DSL 258

Posted by kdawson from the not-what-i-call-broadband dept.
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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AT&T Quietly Introduces $10/Month DSL More

AT&T Quietly Introduces $10/Month DSL

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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:2, Informative)

        by bdjacobson ( 1094909 )
        The important improvement would be the latency.

        If there is no bandwidth cap (it's slow enough they don't need a b/w cap) then this is a great deal in my opinion. I don't need that Linux ISO _right_ now.

      • 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)?

  • 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.

      • Re:If it were free it would still be overpriced (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Reaperducer ( 871695 ) on Monday June 18, 2007 @07:58PM (#19559223)
        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.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by laffer1 ( 701823 )
          First, I use Comcast cable service with 2 macs and several PCs. The installer doesn't usually care. They'll just hand you the modem, you plug it in, and its up. They may not want to support you if you have a problem, but that's another story.

          As for AT&T and DSL, I had SBC Yahoo DSL for two years. It was great. Fast service, good tech support. Then I made the fatal mistake of moving. Their rep told me it would be no problem to move my service. I was moving in town and kept my same phone number.

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

            by Reaperducer ( 871695 ) on Monday June 18, 2007 @09:47PM (#19560137)
            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.
        • 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.

          The appropriate response at that point would have been, "Get your supervisor on the line."
      • AT&T is not AT&T now, because the name was sold [att.com] to SBC. My understanding is that the SBC trademark was worse than useless because the company is so abusive. So, the managers decided to use another name.

        Those interested in how that happened can watch Stephen Colbert explain in a 1 minute 14 second video: The New AT&T [google.com].

        SBC taking the name AT&T is, in my opinion, a kind of legal fraud, but fraud nevertheless. People are bound to be confused and misled. AT&T had a very good reputation.

    • 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:2)

      by rossz ( 67331 )
      I agree. They could drop the price to zero and I still won't go for it. Dealing with AT&T is far too painful. They'd have to pay me to take their damn service, and I'm not cheap!
    • For what it's worth, back in the day, AT&T's dialup offering was easily the best in the business.

      I knew a few IBM engineers who did consulting work at their NOC, and they were always most impressed by AT&T out of the ISPs they worked at.

    • 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

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by skintigh2 ( 456496 )
      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

  • That price is basically a lie. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) * <slashdot@kadin.xoxy@net> on Monday June 18, 2007 @06:31PM (#19558443) Homepage Journal
    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.)

    • If you re-read the TFA, it also said:

      who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband


      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Joffrey ( 242525 )
        I have an AT&T POTS line, with zero frills (not even unlimited local dialing out), for about $17/mo with taxes, fees and so forth. Fully $8-9 of that monthly fee is taxes, fees, and other associated "recoveries," but it is a pretty cheap POTS line, so I still have phone service if the power goes out, etc.

    • Au Contraire (Score:5, Informative)

      by SpaceLifeForm ( 228190 ) on Monday June 18, 2007 @06:39PM (#19558541)
      I just ordered it for someone today that already had POTS.
      Got the 1.5Mbps package for $20/month. Did it online,
      which probably helps.

      The catch is that you also have to purchase a DSL modem ($50)
      or a combo DSL Modem/Router ($80), plus another $27 for S&H.

      And you'll definitely want to skip the $200 technician option
      to install it for you.
    • Just $10 for POTS? Our city here in Canada has the good ol' local monopoly equivalent charging $30+ a month for POTS.

    • You have to sign up for a POTS line with them
      Are there any DSL providers where that isn't a requirement? The brief time that I had Verizon DSL several years ago I also had to have phone service through them.
      • AT&T requires a phone line for discounted service. The subscriber still qualifies for service at a higher price.

      • You have to sign up for a POTS line with them

        Are there any DSL providers where that isn't a requirement?

        Qwest doesn't like to admit it, but you can get DSL without POTS through them. They still charge you about half of what the POTS would have cost you, but it can be done. (Or, at least, you could last I checked... About 2 years ago.) The DSL service itself comes without an ISP. So they try to force you onto their MSN service. Tell them you don't use Windows, and they'll "downgrade" you to their Qw

      • Are there any DSL providers where that isn't a requirement?

        Yeah, AT&T. Contrary to what the reacionary twitchers at /. think, AT&T doesn't require you to have their phone service to get their DSL.

        I have no AT&T phone service (the tech called it a "dry loop"), but I have AT&T DSL.

        The catch is (at least in my area) that AT&T caps you at three megabits. In order to get their six megabit package you have to sign up for phone service.

        • I tried to order AT&T dry loop service in the San Francisco Bay area two months ago.

          After jumping around the phone tree for a while, I was told that it was possible to order it, but that the cheapest possible plan cost more than $20 above the cost of their cheapest bundled rate, and it required paying for a professional installation, signing up for a one year contract, and not getting any discounts or rebates on the mandatory dsl modem purchase.

          I ended up reluctantly ordering a minimal ("measured rate")

    • Re:That price is basically a lie. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18, 2007 @07:24PM (#19558943)
      It's $10 a month, with an additional feature of sending all your packets directly to the NSA at no extra charge!

      Oh yeah, you can't opt out of that feature. It's a bundle.
    • I used to have DSL- yeah you had to have a POTS to sign up but I cancelled that 8 seconds after the loser installer left the house. They never followed up to see if I kept the POTS. If there's any industry that needs a shakeup it's the telecom one- those early days of small companies offering internet access and the hope (make that a dream) of equal access need to stange a comeback. I will never get any product via AT&T but I do wish they'd start challenging the cable companies so both of these butthead
  • 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."

      • and they block user-level VoIP
        Who is your ISP? I just did some quick searches and didn't find any news of ISP's blocking VoIP since '05 when apparently the FCC hit a few of them with fines for doing so.

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

        Use Skype, it's encrypted p2p so it's annoying to block. If they do block that, you could get more advanced and rent a virtual server and set up an encrypted tunnel using a protocol they don't block. If they make the latency so bad that VoIP is worthless or do protocol white listing or something, their service will suck so much that any competitor will obviously be better than they are.

    • 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:2, Insightful)

        by Lord Ender ( 156273 )
        Well, Mr. Clueless, I'll tell you.

        Do you have a cell phone? For the 2 hours per year your power is out, you can use that. If that's not enough for you, you can buy a UPS and put your modem, VoIP router, and phone on it. So, now that you have enough clue to realize that availability is a non-argument...

        VoIP like Vonage has EVERY feature you can possibly imagine with a landline, plus some that just aren't available at all for landline proles.

        I'm talking voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, advanced call forwar

        • Do you have a cell phone?
          Then why do you need another phone? For $24.99 a month less, you could just use that cell phone when the power's on too.

          • Overage on my cell phone costs some stupid rate per minute, and even more for international calls. My VoIP service [galaxyvoice.com] costs $0/month + $0.023/minute to almost anywhere. I don't see any reason not to take advantage of the better price of VoIP service.

          • Vonage has a 500min plan for $15. Virgin Mobile has prepay cell phones with no contracts for $0.18/min. It's a good combo. My total phone bill is $25/mo.

    • !Worthless (Score:3, Informative)

      by hobo sapiens ( 893427 )
      * 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

    • 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.

      Lies and FUD. Did you make this stuff up yourself, or did you see it in a cable company newsletter?

      I got AT&T DSL last month with no phone service (I use Vonage -- works great!), no contract, and no installation fee. The only thing I had to buy was the DSL modem for ~$50.

      I even ordered it online, where the option to get DSL without the phone line was presented just as clearly

      • I don't live in Chicago. I live in an area which has very little regulation. ATT here requires an installation fee (and forcing you to buy a modem really IS a fee). It also required buying their landline phone service. It also REQUIRED a one year contract.

        This was a former SBC state. It may not be the same everywhere, but when the local government doesn't hold them back, the phone company bundles and contracts the shit out of you, whether you like it or not.

        • when the local government doesn't hold them back, the phone company bundles and contracts the shit out of you

          I've lived in rural areas, so I understand. I don't think it's so much to do with regulation as competition. If AT&T pisses me off, I can switch to one of dozens of DSL, cable, and wireless providers. It's one of the many benefits of living in a big city.

          Heck, as recently as a few years ago I lived in a very small town where you only needed to dial five digits to call phone numbers across

    • AT&T no longer does contracts, self-install is free and the modem is free after rebate. Where I live, AT&T DSL (plus no-frills POTS service and taxes) is not surprisingly roughly the same price as cable once you factor in cable's deceptive marketing too -- equipment rental, promo pricing that jacks up after the first few months, etc.

      As far as VoIP.. I've never used it, myself. I use my cell as my main number. Why bother with a phone you can't take with you?

    • Because anybody with a clue is using VoIP by this point

      What if your ISP is your phone company and gives you a decent analog voice rate? Why would I install VoIP and have a fully functional analog line go to waste?

      Sure, I don't get unlimited long distance - but I'm posting on /. - I don't have a lot of friends to call.

  • Random thought. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) 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.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rob1980 ( 941751 )
      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.
      • Ah, I see, you're absolutely right. It was kind of a dumb question in retrospect. Kind of exemplary of Slashdot though that my silly fantasy of an idea has already been modded up to "Score: 5, Insightful" but your common sense answer hasn't been modded up at all yet.

      • Actually, with a programmable router in your house and another in a data center somewhere bonding a bunch of crappy DSL lines together should be entirely feasible. It'd be obnoxious and expensive though - my quick figuring is showing that it's not a good deal money-wise.

    • Here's a random suggestion.
      Call up Comcast, tell them you saw a compelling offer from the local DSL provider for only $29.99 (or whatever else the price is) for a year and Comcast will match it.
      It took me less than 5 minutes including the hold time.
      • Wow, is your new price for the 12 months of service?

      • Call up Comcast, tell them you saw a compelling offer from the local DSL provider for only $29.99 (or whatever else the price is) for a year and Comcast will match it.

        FYI, I tried that with Earthlink about a year ago... Their scheme is to offer you a $10-20 rebate, claiming they're likely to have a sale/price-drop in another month or two. In my case, I checked for the next 6 months (after I switched) and nothing ever happened. I guess they hope they can brush you off, and hope in a month you'll forget ab

    • 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.
      Tell them you're a small business. I find that if you're already willing to throw money at a telecom problem, they'll do whatever you want if you say you're a business.
      • And then get slammed for not using their business serves? This could open up a can of worms not worth fighting. Many agreements for residential services are things like not running servers, which means no Apache, SmartFTP, or anything other than hosting a video game online.

        • And then get slammed for not using their business serves?
          I'm not sure what you mean by this. Lots of businesses, especially small ones, only use port 80. Are you worried that you're not going to use enough different types of internet that they'll crack down on you?

        • I have Verizon Business DSL for my house for the express purpose of getting a higher speed and avoiding the crap restrictions on Residential service. It works great: I pay a bit more and they don't give me any crap.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossz ( 67331 )
      Comcast offers a business cable line that has decent upload speed and multiple channels (four ways, I think) to give multiple computers better performance. Kind of like a mini T1.
  • 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?

  • 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. :(.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • 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...com> 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

    • 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.

      BAH! I would personally be MUCH happier with, say, 128/64k DSL/Cable for $5/month, rather than $50/month 10Mbit...

      Even with my regular use of P2P, Linux/BSD ISO downloads, etc., I don't come anywhere close to maxing out my 768k connection for the tiniest fraction of a day.

      I'm obviously not a gamer, and I'm sure I could squeeze at lea

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GweeDo ( 127172 )
      Having been with SBC/AT&T for 3 years now for DSL service I am also nothing but happy. They started with only 1.5Mb in my area, but I now get 6Mb for $29.99/month. Add a basic POTS line with caller id and I don't even pay $60/month after taxes.

  • Up to? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by haut ( 678547 )
    Ever notice how high speed internet connections are always sold as "up to" so-and-so speed? That doesn't mean anything to me - I want to know the lowest it can go and the typical up/down speeds. I'm just glad my salary isn't an "up to".
  • This is really perfect for my needs. I already use my neighbors' wireless and high-speed cable connection for things like bittorrent anyway. I just need something that's always on that I can configure for port forwarding so I can ssh in to my desktop when I need to.

  • 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.

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