AT&T quietly rolls out reasonably-priced unbundled DSL
Over the past month, AT&T has quietly started to offer reasonably priced unbundled "naked" DSL Internet service to customers around the country. The company's website makes no mention of the service, nor do its Internet phone sales representatives offer or even discuss the service. Customers wishing to sign up will need to call a specific department at AT&T to request the secret plan. Two tiers are offered, a 3Mbit down/1.5 Mbit up plan for $28.99 per month, and a 1.5Mbit down/768k up for $23.99. Those who opt for the stand-alone DSL service will be able to avoid paying the myriad of mandatory fees associated with a phone line.
The service is available to customers in at least the following states: AL, AR, CA, FL, GA, IN, IL, KY, LA, MI, MO, OH, NC NV, SC, TN, TX
Customers wishing to sign up for the service should do the following:
- Call the AT&T Dry Loop department directly at 888-800-4095.
- Ask to switch to "DSL direct".
- If they give you a hassle, say it's a retention offer.
The Real AT&T
(Credit: EFF)The Federal Communications Commission ordered AT&T to begin offering stand-alone DSL service as one of a handful of conditions that allowed for the merger of SBC Communications and AT&T in October 2005. While it technically met the conditions it agreed to, the services were offered at such an obscenely high price that few actually opted to drop their telephone service.
The company has been widely criticized in the past for its unbundled service pricing structures. Back in 2006, the company began offering stand-alone DSL for $44.99 a month. At the same time, the company offered bundled DSL service for $29.99 a month, but subscribers were also required to purchase telephone service in a package that totaled about $46 a month. Customers could essentially save $1 per month by choosing to go with the unbundled Internet service.
In December of 2006, the company agreed to offer a low priced bundled DSL service, as part of several conditions negotiated with the FCC in order to complete a merger with BellSouth. While technically meeting the promises it made to the FCC, the company did its best to make it almost impossible for customers to locate information on the much hyped $10 per month DSL plan. Furthermore, at 768Kbps down and 128Kbps up (compared to the 3-6Mbit down speeds that the company advertisers on its website), the service barely qualified as broadband.
As part of the same BellSouth merger deal, AT&T also agreed to offer reasonably priced unbundled DSL service to customers in the 22 states that it serves. The company is required to offer the service for 30 months. After that, it can force everyone to go back to bundled DSL.
According to a number of postings by users on the Fatwallet and DSL reports web forums, AT&T has been quietly offering the previously announced unbundled DSL for at least one month. Two services are offered, a 3Mbit down/1.5 Mbit up plan for $28.99 per month, and a 1.5Mbit down/768k up for $23.99. These prices are roughly $3-5 more expensive than the bundled plans. However, customers will not need to pay $12+ per month for the required phone service as well as the myriad of mandatory phone related taxes and fees. That is, for the first time, DSL subscribers can actually save real money by ditching their phone line.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am no fan of AT&T. The company's willing (and highly profitable) participation in the illegal NSA wiretapping program is disgraceful, and should the US Congress actually let the lawsuits proceed, AT&T could be looking at $21,000 in damages for every customer they let the NSA listen to (i.e. all of its 100+ million customers). A successful class-action would probably result in a lovely situation where customers could choose between having the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the ACLU as their long distance carriers...
The FCC: A revolving door to Corporate America
(Credit: Flickr / sillygwailo)AT&T has dragged their feet in offering unbundled DSL service. Even under this new, cheaper service offering, it is still impossible to get the company's highest tier of service, "up to" 6Mb downstream, without getting a phone line. Only 3Mb and 1.5Mb services are offered to those who refuse a dial-tone. The blame for this, however, does not lie with AT&T, but with the FCC.
As the first few paragraphs of this blog post should have made clear, AT&T has only ever offered lower priced, pro consumer services when it was absolutely forced to. This was usually done as part of terms negotiated with the FCC. AT&T wanted to merge with another of it's Ma-Bell siblings, and in order to do so, the company had to agree to a few token offerings requested by the FCC. The only reason AT&T is offering snail-speed DSL for $10 per month, or unbundled DSL service at all, is because it was forced to.
To expect the company to do anything else would be insane. AT&T is a corporation, which by its very definition is a for-profit entity. Furthermore, AT&T enjoys a near monopoly in many markets. If it did anything other than try to milk every last cent out of its customers, its shareholders would file suit and demand the heads of the CEO and the other members of the board. Simply put, corporations exist to make a profit. If we as consumers want reasonably priced pro-consumer products and services, we cannot rely upon monopolist corporations to provide them.
The solution to this problem, of course, is government regulation which encourages competition. If AT&T's customers could choose from 10 other companies, prices would fall, and consumer demands for unbundled services would have been met long ago. Unfortunately, instead of passing pro-consumer regulations, the FCC bends over backwards to help the telecom companies. With AT&T spending over $19 million on lobbying in 2006 (1/3 of the total contributed by the telecom industry that year), is it any surprise that the FCC looks out for the telcos?
According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, more than 100 former FCC employees have also worked in the private sector. At least 50 percent of them have lobbied on issues related to telecom, communications and broadcast at some point in their careers. The Center's Revolving Door Database lists the FCC as the agency with the third-highest number of employees who have shuffled between the public and private interests focused on the federal government, behind only the White House and the House of Representatives.
What is the end result of this? US consumers lack access to real high speed access, pay through the nose, and are stuck with one or two companies who have little incentive to compete. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, French broadband connections are, on average, more than three times as fast as ours. Japanese connections are a dozen times faster. Oh, and access is much cheaper in both countries than it is here. As an example, 52% of French homes subscribe to VOIP based telephone service. Furthermore, over 1.1 million French subscribers pay as low as $40 monthly for a "triple play" package that includes 81 TV channels, unlimited phone calls within France and to 14 countries, and blazing fast 28Mbit Internet connection. For that same price, AT&T customers can get a 3Mbit connection and a local phone line.
The reason for this is pro-competition government regulation. In 2000, France's national telecom regulator forced former state-owned monopoly France Telecom to open up its network to rival operators. That encouraged telecom upstarts and carriers from other countries to rent access to France Telecom's wires and start offering competing broadband services. And that, in turn, spurred France Telecom to improve its own prices and services.
The US has sadly fallen far behind other western nations when it comes to broadband adoption and availability. The telcos offer us crappy, overpriced slow service, while consumers in Japan can stream HDTV live to their computers. The blame for this of course, falls squarely on the FCC. Now... how do I go about moving to France?
Christopher Soghoian delves into the areas of security, privacy, technology policy and cyber-law. He is a student fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society , and is a PhD candidate at Indiana University's School of Informatics. His academic work and contact information can be found by visiting www.dubfire.net/chris/. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
Keep up the great work! I'm going to follow your articles from now on. I wish there was a way to subscribe to an email push. But i will get a google alert started.
I'd like to see your analysis of the benefits of datamining for security purposes. Because i think that it can be a powerful tool for good use as well as a potential abuse of power. You're probably having a good laff at my expense now! Nonetheless keep it up.
When I moved to this country - the US - a few months ago, I was really disappointed by the
low quality and extremely high price of the broadband Internet access you can get from home in the US. Aren't the US supposed to be the leaders in new technologies and innovation, the country of the Internet startups ? Compared to other European or Asian countries the state of the broadband Internet access in the US is way behind.
To compare with the situation in France, we can say that it was certainly also a long struggle by the government and the customers support groups to fight the monopoly of the historical phone company. But they did succeed and the DSL broadband Internet access from home has been flourishing with a large number of quality ISP. For ?29.99/month (roughly $40 now that the dollar euro exchange rate has sky-rocketed - 1 euro used to be roughly 1 dollar) you get a very high speed DSL Internet access, a static IP address, 100 channels of digital HDTV, and a free Internet phone line (can you imagine, you call anywhere in France for free, and even you can have international calls like from France to the US for free). And you don't have to pay a monthly subscription to a regular phone line from the historical phone company (you just don't need it, people use their high quality crystal clear cell phones if they need another line other than Internet). And all this works like a charm !
For an idea of what's available, have a look at http://www.free.fr/
While that's definitely a benefit of living across the pond, keep in mind your net take home pay will often be higher in the U.S. since taxes are typically lower in most cases. So it might actually be a wash if you figure the difference in taxation.
-P
FCC or AT&T ????
Yes...the government will solve it for us. Please...more intrusive goverment and regulations do not encourage competition...they stifle it.
Mark
they let the NSA listen to (i.e. all of its 100+ million customers)."
"A successful class-action would probably result in a lovely situation where customers could choose between having the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the ACLU as their long distance carriers..."
I take it this was tongue-in-cheek. The ACLU is by far the most destructive organization to ever grace the soil they constantly and consistently try to destroy. Their attempts at "defending freedom" cost us and our children in ways that we cannot begin to measure.
Like I said, stick to technology and leave politics to the professional politicians (an oxymoron in itself and something no human should ever be allowed to become) and spin doctors. At least when we hear them speaking we know what we're getting.
The biggest misconception most of us Americans have is that the spying began after September 11th. The Bush Administrion claimed they needed this to keep us safe.
This is not accurate and there is sworn testimony in a court of law that the domestic spying by the Bush Administration started back in February of 2001.
You really need to get your facts correct before you post, do a google search and you can find many articles on this topic.
Here is another article that lays it all out you in black and white.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html
"Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: October 14, 2007
The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company?s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings."
So, If Bush had this system up and running and it was supposed to protect us...HOW THE HELL DID 9/11 HAPPEN???
If you want to be an early adopter of this, be ready for some pains b/c AT&T is making it miserable for me to transfer. But we need enough early adopters to tell AT&T to screw off and unbundle their services...
I live in San Francisco and had AT&T High Speed, placed the order on 12/24/07 for $23.99 dry loop service. What a joke. They screwed up my order and so didn't place it (after telling me it'd take two business days to get done). The originally scheduled downtime happened (on 12/31) but the uptime sure hasn't yet. It was planned for 1/2 but on 1/3 I checked and found out that the "order hadn't been placed". ***?
Currently no department wants to take responsibility to get this done, even though someone there screwed up the order.
They first told me it'd take 2 business days, now they're saying 5 biz days from the date of the "fixed" order and that "Dry Loop cases don't have escalations because they are not a priority." (I'm appalled that they can say this with a regretful tone - it's condescending)
Customer service reps are sweet but ineffective - if AT&T wants to keep its techier clients they need to get with the times. This is 2008 and Silicon Valley - play nice before the Google gets in on your turf.
I spent about 1 hour on the phone last night with a polite Vonage rep. I qualified with all the prerequisites necessary to switch to Vonage: Current AT&T basic phone service with Unitel as my long distance provider and two years as a subscriber to Earthlink adsl. I did want to keep my existing phone number after the switch to Vonage. There was a bit of discussion about 911 disclosure/ service with Vonage. They seem to expect you to say "Yes" to something that sounds quite like legalese, without reading it first. Anyway, in just under an hour last night, I thought I was on my way to joining Vonage. After the call, I logged onto Vonage, filled out and submitted one form, changed passwords, etc all in a few minutes.
The first thing this morning, there was an e-mail from Vonage :
"Unfortunately, we have been advised by your current phone company that there is an issue that is preventing the transfer to Vonage. The below issue needs to be addressed in order to transfer your number.
DSL high-speed Internet is currently associated with the number you wish to transfer. You will need to remove this feature in order to proceed with transferring your phone number. Please keep in mind that if you remove your DSL service from this line, you will need to establish DSL service on another line with your phone company or establish broadband service with another broadband provider, such as Cable Internet, in order to use Vonage service.
In order to resolve this issue, we suggest that you :
Call your current phone company and request that DSL be removed from the line you wish to transfer and placed on another line.
Confirm with your phone company that your account has been updated to reflect the change by getting a confirmation number.
Call us with the confirmation number."
Keep in mind that you must have a dsl (adsl?) connection in order for Vonage to work. I went to work and called AT&T. After the usual long wait, AT&T told me they were sorry; but, that I had to call Earthlink to disconnect my adsl!
I called Earthlink. They, of course, wanted to keep me as their long time (four years, total) customer. I explained the unanswered issues I have had with Earthlink and asked for my confirmation number to disconnect.
I called Vonage customer service once again and explained that I felt their instructions actually were illogical. I now was without the required adsl connection. I told them that my ultimate goal was to go with "dry loop/ naked dsl." I did not plan to do it until AFTER I knew I liked Vonage, via the Earthlink adsl connection.
I then called AT&T. (I suggest you use your local customer service number. The one in the above article is for Ohio only.) I was told that the cost for 6 MB was $47.95, 3 MB was $42.95 (37.95 plus 5.00 for the adsl), and 1.5 MB $37.95. I hesitated and said that I had read that the price was lower. She assured me that these were the correct prices. Of course the AT&T rep wanted me to stay with AT&T, with the usual warnings "Do you realize that when the electricity or the Internet goes down, you will not have phone service?" The clincher that stopped her was when I listed all the other benefits that Vonage offers, only two of which she was offering as part of the AT&T package.
All agencies concerned thought I should be up and running with Vonage in about ten days.
Costs:
Vonage $24.99 will actually be $30.91/ month
Vonage $53.12 which is the $29.99 activation fee and $14.95 S&H for their $49.99/ free router.
AT&T $42.95 plus/month for the 3 MB adsl
AT&T modem is free after activation I must call in for a rebate choice.
So, for now I anticipate minimal savings, twice the speed I had with Earthlink, and with additional benefits such as call waiting, etc:
Unitel costs about $10/ mo for long distance calls
AT&T costs about $21.50 plus some instate toll calls apparently billed by USBL
Earthlink adsl $39.95/ month
As is said here in south Florida, "Time will tell."
Thank you once again.
Mike
If you want to be an early adopter of this, be ready for some pains b/c AT&T is making it miserable for me to transfer. But we need enough early adopters to tell AT&T to screw off and unbundle their services...
I live in San Francisco and had AT&T High Speed, placed the order on 12/24/07 for $23.99 dry loop service. What a joke. They screwed up my order and so didn't place it (after telling me it'd take two business days to get done). The originally scheduled downtime happened (on 12/31) but the uptime sure hasn't yet. It was planned for 1/2 but on 1/3 I checked and found out that the "order hadn't been placed". ***?
Currently no department wants to take responsibility to get this done, even though someone there screwed up the order.
They first told me it'd take 2 business days, now they're saying 5 biz days from the date of the "fixed" order and that "Dry Loop cases don't have escalations because they are not a priority." (I'm appalled that they can say this with a regretful tone - it's condescending)
Customer service reps are sweet but ineffective - if AT&T wants to keep its techier clients they need to get with the times. This is 2008 and Silicon Valley - play nice before the Google gets in on your turf.
- by Hexagrapher666 September 12, 2008 7:53 PM PDT
- Your readers may find the names of AT&T's unbundled DSL services to be useful when ordering:
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(24 Comments)Direct Basic (768 Kbps, $19.95, requires 12 month contract)
Direct Express (1.5 Mbps, $23.99, month-to-month)
Direct Pro (3 Mbps, $28.99, month-to-month)