The Consumerist and Cory Doctorow both wrote a bit on AT&T’s secret $10 DSL (”Downstream speeds up to 768Kbps/Upstream speeds up to 128Kbps”) which offers bare bones access because of an FCC loophole they couldn’t close when the bought BellSouth. You have to sign up for a full year, though.
That’s all well and good, but Cory suggests avoiding the service — and AT&T DSL — because of their stance on net neutrality, illegal wiretapping, and draconian copyright policing. He says:
Seriously: the only day I wouldn’t piss on AT&T is if they were on fire.
Fancy.
AT&T’s Secret $10 DSL [Consumerist via BoingBoing]
I wrote to another blog’s commentary yesterday, with some vitriol against AT&T. I still feel that way (toward AT&T).
I’ve been on dialup since 1995. Have Comcast cable here in this house, but I won’t buy Comcast’s broadband on reason of principle: that firm, here in Miami, is utterly unresponsive to service requests. After hurricanes two seasons ago, the drop from pole to the house was down for two months. Dozens of service appointment promises were made, broken, excused by “we have no record of any service order”, or “our records show no problem”, or “we will be out tomorrow before five”, or whatever. Two months. And that was just for that trouble. Any other service request (several over the years) have been similarly bungled. SO- no Comcast cable broadband in my home.
That leaves for an option, AT&T. I resisted going that route before the $10 offer popped up, because the best =potential speed= they can offer in this neighborhood, is only 1.5mips.
But yesterday, just 24hours ago, I did the deed, found the Secret Offer page, and ordered the free modem and $10/mo service (I’m now obligated for one year).
THIS morning, an hour ago, my phone line went dead. Contrast what follows with my Comcast grips up above:
-Dialed 611, “Hello, how can I help you” said a Ms. Harris. “My phone is dead, no dial tone. “I’m so sorry about that, sir. Let me make a quick line check from here.” (minute later) “Yes sir, the outside line is the problem, it’s not inside your home. We will have it fixed today before 7PM.”
But by the time she said that, I had gathered a suspicion! There’s a big junction box down the street in front of my neighbor’s property. Often the BellSouth (now ATT) guys work there on the line pairs.
I jogged out of my house and took a gander: Sure enough, an ATT panel van and one technician were at the junction box. I thought: Damn fool has cut off my service while bungling up some job or other. So I walked down and challenged him (not nasty though).
“Say, good morning. My phone just went dead.”
The technician replied “Do you live at xxxx Maple Street?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“I’m installing your DSL line right now.”
I beamed. Good old POTS telephone service yet lives!
—-more:
Young Mr. XXXXX, the friendly technician, explained and answered the questions that ATT will not at present answer by phone or from the webpage:
Firstly: I have two computers in the house.
The Secret Offer deal does not allow for the order of a wireless gateway or router, by which to feed two computers. I thought, I will only be able to feed my computer, and old dad’s computer would have to remain on dialup.
The tech informed me that he is -pretty sure- we can use a gateway here, at no extra cost above the $10 term agreement. He volunteered, “I will call you at the end of the day with an answer, or you can call me anytime.”
I gave the guy a grateful handshake. “Thanks! I’ll tell the company how helpful you were.”
“That’s appreciated, but no, don’t tell them what I told you about the term service. I’m not supposed to tell customers more than the company wants to tell them.” (I paraphrased that last line. The technician is not a native English speaker, but it was quite clear that he’s HAPPY to see a new crop of happy customers.
“Has anyone else besides me ordered the $10 service in the past few days?”
“Yes! Three in this neighborhood!”
“Well, it’s the way for me to go, since all we can get here is 1.5mip at most.”
“That’s true, but the company is thinking of installing a repeater nearby soon and then the potential for speed will be greater.”
(again, paraphrased because his English is broken).
The technicians are the backbone of any service-oriented company.
They are people like us, just trying to make a living, and most of the BellSouth workers I’ve met are competent and good-natured.
And so, I am happy to have this service, and have them, and
TO HELL with the Comcast that monopolizes Miami.
I’ll report again later on when the DSL is working, and relate just how much of the nominal 768 speed is actually obtainable. Anything has to be better than what at present comes via dialup.
Cheers. Thank you BellSouth technician, Mr. XXXXX. I’m sorry you work under the mismanagement of Gigantic Turds.
Parting shot: “Mr. XXXXX, should I call 611 and cancel the repair order?”
He laughed and said in his new-English way, which I put to more-regular English:
“Please, no, not necessary to cancel the repair order. It’s a funny joke because the “problem” was only me with the wires off the terminals.
So I will tell them and I will have fun telling them this!”
‘Naked DSL’: how to find and get the best price
By Michael Sorkin
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Friday, Jan. 18 2008
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.
She says after nearly a day, she finally connected with a sales rep who signed
her up for AT&T’s $28.99 Direct Pro DSL plan. Service started this week, and
she’s delighted.
But she chides the company for making it so hard: “They do a good job of hiding
it.”
We called AT&T’s Shaw, who responded:
“I apologize. We want everyone who calls in to be a customer. The vast majority
of these orders work. Sometimes we make a mistake, and we try to fix it.”
msorkin@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8347
It’s a real chore to find the unbundled DSL price that’s advertised, but here is the direct link.
http://attsignup.com/att_dsl_for_$10.htm